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Vol. 2, No. 49. Dec. 19, 1882. Extra. Annual Subscription, 52 Numbers, $8.00 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


OHAPTEE I. 

THE LOST TRAVELER. 

U ^JEAVEN aid me ! where am I now — which 
Ju# way shall I turn — advance or retire ? ” ex- 
claimed Balgonie, as his horse came plunging 
down, almost on its knees, amid wild gorse and 
matted jungle. 

A cold day in the middle of April had passed 
away ; a pale and cheerless sun, that had cast no 
heat on the leafless scenery, and the half-frozen 
marshes that border the Louga in Western Kussia, 
had sunk, and the darkness of a stormy night came 
on rapidly. The keen blast of the north, that swept 
the arid scalps of the Dudenhof (the only range of 
hills that traverses the ancient Ingria), was bellow- 
ing through a gorge, where the Louga poured in 
foam upon its passage to the Gulf of Finland, be- 


2 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


tween steep banks that were covered by gloomy 
pines, when the speaker, a mounted officer in 
Kussian uniform, who seemed too surely to have 
lost his way, reined up a weary and mud-covered 
horse on the margin of the stream, and by the light 
that yet lingered on the tops of the tall pines, and 
gilded faintly the metal-co veered domes of a distant 
building on the opposite bank, looked hopelessly 
about him for the means of crossing the dangerous 
river. 

“ Where am I ? ” he repeated, almost despairing^ 
ly ; for, as Schiller sings in liis ‘‘ Song of the 
BeU,”— 

“ Man fears the kingly lion’s tread ; 

Man fears the tiger’s fangs of terror ; 

And still the dreadliest of the dread 
Is man himself in error ! ” 

Though clad in the uniform of the Russian Regi- 
ment of Smolensko, which was raised in the famous 
Duchy of that name, the traveler was neither Mus- 
covite nor Calmuck, Cossack nor Tartar, but a cool, 
wary, and determined young Briton, one of the 
many Scottish officers whom misfortune or ambition 
had drawn into Russian service, both by sea and 
land, from the time of Peter the Great down to the 
beginning of the present century ; for many Scot- 
tish officers served in the Russian fleet with Ad- 
miral Greigat the famous bombardment of Yarna: 
and it was such volunteers as these that flrst taught 
the barbarous hordes of the growing empire the 


THE LOST TRAVELEEJR. 


3 


true science of war and the necessity for discipline. 

The rider’s green uniform, faced with scarlet vel- 
vet and richly laced with gold, was covered by a 
thick gray pelisse (like our present patrol-jackets), 
trimmed with black wolf’s fur ; he wore a scarlet 
forage cap with a square top, long boots that came 
above the knee, and a Turkish sabre that had once 
armed a pasha of more tails than one. 

“ Swim the river I must,” he muttered, after 
having traversed the valley in vain, looking for a 
bridge, boat, or raft of timber ; but, egad, death 
may be the penalty. AVell,” he added, with a gleam 
of ire in his dark gray eyes and a bitter smile on 
his lip, “ there was a time, perhaps, when I little 
thought that I, Charlie Balgonie, would find a 
nameless grave in this land of timber, hemp, and 
salted hides, where caviare is a luxury, train-oil a 
liqueur, and the air of Siberia deemed healthy for 
all who have any absurd ideas of political freedom, 
or are silly enough to imagine that a man may be 
the lord of his own proper person.” 

To add to his troubles and discomfort, though 
the rnontii was April — usually the most serene of 
the year in Russia — snow-flakes were beginning to 
fall, rendering yet greater tlie gloom of the gather- 
ing night. 

‘‘ I was to have found a bridge here. Can that 
Livonian villain, Podatchkine, have deluded, and 
then left me to my fate ? ” 


4 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


He knew that in his rear, the way by which he 
had come, lay half -frozen morasses, healthy wastes, 
and forests of spruce, larch, and silver-leaved firs — 
vast natural magazines for supplying all Europe 
with masts and spars — the haunt of the wolf and 
bear; he knew that to linger or to return were 
worse than to advance, and tliat he must cross 
the stream and seek quarters and guidance at the 
chateau, the name of which was yet unknown to 
him. 

This was, if possible, the worst season for pass- 
ing the Louga, which is always deepest and most 
navigable in spring. It rises in the district of 
Novgorod ; and, after traversing a country full of 
vast forests for more than 180 miles, falls into the 
Gulf of Finland. 

Balgonie buttoned tightly his holster-flaps, hooked 
up his sabre, assured himself than an important 
dispatch with which he was entrusted was safe in 
an inner pocket, and prepared seriously for the 
perilous task of swimming his horse across the 
stream. 

Again he looked anxiously at the chateau, the 
abode evidently of some wealthy noble or hoyar. 
Its outline liad almost disappeared in the increasing 
obscurity ; the last faint gleams of the west had 
faded away on the onion-shaped roofs of its turrets, 
and a central dome of polished copper, which was 
cut into facets like the outside of a pine-apple (for 


THE LOST TRAVELLER. 


5 


there is much of the Oriental in the old Kussian 
architecture) ; hut lights were beginning to sparkle 
cheerfully through its double-sashed windows upon 
the feathery and funeral-like foliage of the solemn 
pine woods. 

Could those who tvere comfortably, perhaps 
luxuriously, seated within, but know that there was 
a popr human being on the eve, perhaps, of perish- 
ing helplessly amid the dark flow of tliat deep and 
roaring river ! 

“ Courage, friend Charlie ! ” said the rider to 
himself; and then lie hallooed loudly, as if to at- 
tract attention, but did so in vain. The night was 
becoming a very severe one ; the flakes of snow 
fell thicker and thicker on the gusty and cutting 
blast. 

“ Ah ! if I should perish here — such a fate ! ” 
thought he, shuddering. “ Shall I be swept down 
this black and horrid stream, the Louga, to be cast 
a drowned corpse upon its banks, to be found strip- 
ped and buried by wondering, but unpitying serfs 
and boors ; or shall I be torn and mangled by bears 
and wolves ; or borne even to the Gulf of Finland, 
far, far away, having thus an obscure and wretched 
fate, without winning the name I had hoped to gain 
— forgotten even by those who wronged me in 
Scotland, the land that never more shall be a home 
to me ! ’’ 

He did not say all this aloud ; but certainly some 


6 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


such painful surmises flashed upon him as he forced 
his snorting and reluctant horse, liy a vigorous use 
of the spurs, through the thickly interwoven luTish- 
wood that grew on the bank of the river, the dull 
and monotonous rush of wdiich, encumbered as it 
was by large pieces of ice, was sufiicient to appal 
even a stouter heart than that of tliis young Scot- 
tish soldier of fortune. 

With a brief invocation on his lips, he gave his 
horse the reins and gored it with the rowels. A 
strong, active, and clean-limbed, but somewhat 
undersized animal from the steppes of the Ukraine, 
with a fierce and angry snort, it plunged into the 
torrent, and breasted the icy masses bravelj^ 

The slippery fragments that glided past, struck 
at times both horse and rider, forcing them to 
swerve down the stream ; others were dashed by the 
whirling eddies against the projecting pieces of 
rock or roots of old trees ; Imt after twice nearly 
despairing of achieving the passage, and believing 
himself lost, his horse trod firmly on the opposite 
bank. It emerged, panting, snorting, dripping, and 
trembling in every fibre, from tlie flo»xi, and then 
Captain Balgonie found that he had escaped with 
life, and had safely passed the swollen waters of the 
Louga ! 

Leading his sturdy little steed by the bridle and 
caressing it the while, he made his way up the op- 
posite bank, guided only by the lights in the man- 


THE LOST TRAVELLER. 


7 


sion (or castle) ; but he proceeded with extreme 
difficulty, for the underwood was thick and dense as 
that which grew round the Palace of the Sleeping 
Beauty ; ere long, however, he reached a plateau, 
the border of a park or lawn, and saw the snow- 
whitened walls and turrets of the edifice towering 
before him. 

Bising from a balustraded terrace, with an arched 
porte-cochere in front, the fa<5ade was square, and 
three storied, having a central dome like an inverted 
punchbowl, and several little angular towers, tall 
and slender like minarets ; these cut the sky-line, 
and were surrounded each by a broad cornice or 
gallery, and terminated by a bulbous-shaped roof, 
exactly like an onion with its acute end in the ah’. 

The lights in its many windows, the red and 
yellow colored cm’tains wdthin, all indicated warmth 
and comfort ; while with the snow flakes freezing 
on his sodden and saturated uniform, h!s limbs be- 
numbed, and his teeth well-nigh chattering, Bal- 
gonie hastily led his horse under the porte-cochere, 
and applied his hand vigorously to the great brazen 
knocker on the front door. 

It was speedily opened, and a white-bearded 
dvomick, or porter, wearing a long flowing shouhah, 
or coat of fur, lined with red flannel, admitted him 
with many humble genuflections, at the same time 
summoning a groom to take charge of his horse. 

By the bearing of these lackeys, one might ab 


8 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


most have thought that the Captain had been ex- 
pected, or was a friend of the family : but a uniform 
has ever been an all-powerful passport, and an 
epaulette the most mighty of all introductions in 
Hussia, where everything is measured by a military 
standard ; thus, in an incredibly short space of 
time, the wants of rider and horse were alike hos- 
pitably attended to. 


CHAPTEE 11. 


THE CASTLE OF LOUGA. 

a APTAIIT BALGONIE, of the Eegiment of 
Smolensko, soon found himself in a comfort- 
able bed-chamber, where the genial glow of a 
peitchka^ or Eussian wall-stove, diffused warmth 
through his chilled frame, and where every current 
of the external atmosphere was carefully excluded 
by double window sashes, adorned with artificial 
flowers between. 

When he chose to repose, a couch draped with 
snow-white curtains, and having a coverlet of the 
softest fur, awaited him ; and above it hung a little 
holy picture of the Byzantine school, a Holy Yirgin, 
with a halo of shining metal in the form of a horse- 
shoe round her head, if he chose to be devout and 
offer up a prayer. 

A valet, after supplying him with hot coffee and 
a good dram of vodka (which somewhat reminded 
him of his native mountain dew ”), said that the 
Count, his master, would rejoice to have the pleasure 
of the visitor’s society, after he had made a suitable 
toilet, and exchanged his wet uniform for a luxuri- 
ous robe-de-chambre, in the pocket of which he 


10 


THE SECEET DISPATCH. 


took especial care to secure his dispatch unseen. 

Hospitality such as this, was not merely then a 
characteristic of the people, but was the result, per- 
haps, of a meagre population, and the absence of 
inns ; thus the arrival of a stranger, especially an 
officer on duty, at this E-ussian mansion, created 
little or no surprise among its inmates. 

He was ushered into the presence of Count 
Mierowitz, whose name at once inspired him with 
confidence and satisfaction ; for, by one of those 
singular coincidences which novelists dare not use 
in fiction, but which occur daily in actual and mat- 
ter of-fact life,” he had arrived at a mansion where 
he was not altogether unknown. 

“ I have to apologize to your High Excellency 
for this apparent intrusion,” said he ; “ but I have 
been misled or abandoned by my guide. I am Cap- 
tain Balgonie, of the Eegiment of Smolensko, and 
have the good fortune to number among my friends 
your son, Lieutenant Basil Mierowitz, the senior 
subaltern of my company.” 

“For Basil’s sake, not less than your own. Cap- 
tain, are you most welcome to the Castle of Louga,” 
replied the Count, lifting and laying aside his cap. 

He was a man well on in years ; his stature was 
not great, neither- was his presence dignified; he 
stooped a little and was thick set, with a venerable 
beard, undefiled by steel ; for, like a true old Mus- 
covite, he contended that man was made in the 


THE CAS'TLE OF LOUGA. 


11 


image of God, and should neither be cut or carved 
upon. His eyebrows were white, but his eyes were 
dark, keen, quick, and expressed a spirit of ready 
impulse, for laughter or for ferocity — one, who by 
turns could be suave or irritable, especially when 
under the influence of wine, which generally made 
him fierce and stupid ; for never, in all his life, had 
he suffered control or had his will disputed. 

His silver hair was simply tied behind with a 
black ribbon ; in his hand he carried a little cap of 
black wolf’s fur, adorned by rudely set jewels; 
he wore a queerly cut coat of dark red cloth 
trimmed with fur, and wore breeches of the same 
stuff, and lacked but a dagger and pistols with 
brass Turkish butts at his girdle, to seem what he 
really ’was, in disposition and character, a type of 
the boyar of the old school, who preferred quess to 
champagne, ate his pancakes with caviare, and was 
proud of being a specimen of the old Hussian noble, 
as he existed in the time of Peter the Great, when 
his class first united some of the vices and luxuries 
of Western Europe to their native lawlessness and 
hardy ferocity. 

Such was Count Mierowitz. 

“ When did you last see my son?” he asked, in 
tone more of authority than of anxious inquiry. 

“ Some three months since. Excellency : he has 
been detached on the Livonian frontier.” 

“ And you, Captain ” 


12 


THE SECEKT DISPATCH. 

I am proceeding on argent imperial service from 
Novgorod where my regiment is stationed in the 
old palace of the Czars.” 

To whither ? ” 

“ Schlusselburg.” 

The liost changed countenance and almost mani- 
fested signs of discomposure on hearing of that for- 
midable fortress and prison — the veritable Bastille 
of St. Petersburg, and he said : 

A name to shudder at — by St. Nicholas it is ! ” 

“ And, but for the feather in the wax of my dis- 
patch,” resumed Balgonie (showing a red govern- 
ment seal in which a piece of feather twitched from 
a pen was inserted, the usual Kussian emblem of 
speed), ‘‘ I had not, perhaps, tempted the dangers 
of the Louga, but sought a billet on the other side, 
if such could be found.” 

You know not, perhaps, that my woods are full 
of wolves ; but this is not the way to St. Peters- 
burg.” 

“Yet I was so directed. Excellency.” 

“You have been misled, and are only some 
seventy versts or so from the place you have left.” 

“ You amaze me. Count,” exclaimed the per- 
plexed Captain ; for in the Bussian service, an error 
liecomes a crime. 

“ Captain, you should have gone by Gori, 
Oustensk, Spask, and so on.” 

“That dovil of a Podatchkine, an orderly of 


THE CASTLE OF LOU&A. 


13 


) 


General Weymarn, who sent him specially with me, 
has either deluded or abandoned me.” 

‘‘ Yet we must thank your Podatchkine, in so far 
that he has procured us the pleasure of your society 
in this lonely place — my daughter and my niece, 
Captain Ivanovitch Balgouie,” continued the Count, 
introducing two youiig ladies who came through 
the curtains of a species of boudoir, ‘‘Natalie and 
Mariolizza Usakoff. Our visitor, Natalie, is that 
Ivanovitch Balgonie of whom Basil has spoken so 
much and so kindly.” 

Without being a vain man, Balgonie felt at that 
moment considerable satisfaction in the conviction 
that he was — as his glass had often informed him — 
decidedly a good looking young fellow, with regular 
features, line dark eyes, curling brown hair, and a 
smart moustache ; for Natalie Mierowna, like her 
cousin Mariolizza, was one of the most attractive 
women at the dangerous Court of the Empress 
Catharine II. ; for it was during her reign^ that the 
story and the atrocities we have unfortunately to 
record took place ; when among us, in more civilized 
Britain, the grandfather of her present Majesty, old 
George III., was king, and the arts of peace and 
war grew side by side. 

“ The friend and comrade of jny brother Basil is 
welcome,” said Natalie, presenting her hands (very 
tiny and delic/ite they were) to Balgonie, who 
bowed and touched them lightly with his lips ; “ he 


14 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


has often written to us concerning jou and your 
adventures together in Silesia.” 

“ I am but too fortunate to be remembered 
thus.” 

Nay,” rejoined Natalie, we could scarcely for- 
got that daring act of yours, which won you the 
rank you hold at present. Ah, Basil told us all 
about that when he was last here,” she added, with 
a beautiful smile, of which she knew that many had 
already felt the power. 

“You mean my reconnoitring the enemy’s posi- 
tion and avoiding being taken by them ? ” 

“ Yes, pray tell me about it ? ” said Mariolizza, 
her blue eyes dilating with pleasure ; “ my brother 
was there too — Apollo UsakofP, a lieutenant in the 
Eegiment of Yalikolutz.” 

“ It was a very -simple matter,” replied Balgonie, 
bowing to each of the cousins, and not sorry to 
have a good personal anecdote to relate of himself, 
one which was certain to make liim appear to advan- 
tage in the estimation of two very attractive women. 
“ It was only a ruse de guei've^ and occurred when 
our Begiment of Smolensko was with the combined 
armies in Silesia, and before the King of Prussia 
attacked Count Daun at the Heights of Buckers- 
dorff. An exact account of the Austrian position 
was required by our general, who had not then re- 
ceived the orders of the Empress to fall back upon 
Bussiaii frontier. The task was one of extreme 


THE CASTLE OF LOUGA. 


15 


peril ; so I being a soldier of fortune, having all to 
win, and nothing to lose ” 

“ Save your life!” interrupted Natalie. 

“ One in my position, among a foreign army, 
must not value that too much,” said the Captain, in 
a tone not untinged with melancholy. 

“ Well ? ” 

I volunteered for it, despite all that your son. 
Count, my friend, could say to dissuade me. Well 
armed, at midnight, I set out on my solitary mis- 
sion, unattended and alone, without relinquishing 
my uniform ; for if taken prisoner when otherwise 
attired, I would infallibly be hanged as a spy ; but 
ere long I found, that in such a dress, there were 
insuperable difficulties to making the reconnoissance 
required. 

‘‘At the cottage of a Silesian boor, near the base 
of the Eulanbirge (or mountain of the owls), I stop- 
ped to make some inquiries. The fellow proved to 
be partially tipsy ; the contents of my pocket-flask, 
potent vodka, completed his happy condition, and 
after a few jests I prevailed upon him to change 
dresses with me. He donned the green coat, 
epaulettes, and boots of the Kegiment of Smolen- 
sko ; I, the ample canvas caftan and girdle of a 
Silesian boor, — a fiu’ cap, and a visage daubed with 
grime, completed my costume. Thus attired, and 
retaining only my pistols, I reconnoitred safely 
and iinheeded the Austrian position, noting the 


16 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


defences, trenches, fascine batteries, cannon, and 
general disposition ; but I had a narrow escape, for 
when returning to the cottage of my new friend, 
the boor, a party of Count Daun’s Imperial Cui- 
rassiers, who had been patrolling the Eulanbirge, 
overtook me, and at once, perceiving I was not a 
Silesian, cpiestioned me rather closely and curious- 

ly- 

“ I succeeded in passing myself off as a Pome- 
ranian ; and pointing to the cottage, told them that 
there was concealed an officer of the famous Regi- 
ment of Smolensko. They at once galloped off and 
surrounded it, while I stole away to a thicket, and 
climbed into a tree, from whence I could see the 
poor boor, clad in my uniform, and still laboring 
under the influence of his late debaucli, dragged a 
prisoner — despite all his bewildered protestations 
and denials — towards the camp of Count Dauii; 
wliile I, under cover of night, readied in safety the 
lines of the allies, and made my report to General 
Weyinarn, then commanding our division of the 
army. 

“ It proved of no use to us, as we fell back next 
day ; but it enabled our ally, the King of Prussia, 
to storm with signal success the Heights of Buck- 
ersdorff, to drive back Count Daun, and invest 
Schwiednitz. He offerod me rank in his army ; but 
I declined, on which the Empress sent me the com- 
mission of Captain in her Regiment of Smolensko, 


THE OASTlE ()E LOtGAi IT 

tlius enabling me to rank as a noble of tlie ninth 
class.” 

May you soon rank as one of the sixth,” said 
the Count, patting the Captain on the shoulder 
frankly. 

Ah, Excellency, it may be long ere I become a 
colonel ; yet,” he added, almost as if talking to 
himself, “ when I got the letter of the Empress ad- 
dressed- to me, Carl Ivanovitch Hospodeen* Bal- 

* Equivalent to Monsieur or Esquire. 

gonie, I could not but smile at the thought of how 
such a title would have sounded in the ears of my 
good father, old John Balgonie, of that Ilk !” 

“ Let me repeat that you are most welcome,” 
said the Count, who totally failed to understand the 
meaning of the last remark ; “ and luckily you have 
arrived just as the ladies and I were about to pro- 
ceed to the supper-table.” 

To Balgonie it had become apparent that each 
time he mentioned the name of the Empress, the 
proud pink nostrils of Natalie seemed to dilate, and 
that a decidedly dangerous expression glittered in 
her splendid dark eyes. 

Natalie Micro wna, whose beauty had caused such 
jealously at Moscow and St. Petersburg (two duels 
are spoken of concerning her), had ever shone 
brilliantly in the follow-my-leader ” kind of dance, 
now so well known among us as the Mazurka, — 
the old Sclavonian measure, in which all succeeding 


18 


TSE SECRET DISPATCH. 


couples have to imitate the motions of the first; 
and the chief Hussian peculiarity of the dance con- 
sists still in the circumstance of the ladies selecting 
their own partners — the brilliant Natalie, we say, 
having twice sportively, or in a spirit of coquettish 
bravado, chosen a handsome young aidc-de-camp, 
whom the Empress "was supposed to view with 
favor, led to her abrupt exile from Court, and to 
the detaching of Captain Ylasfief, of tlie Imperial 
Guards, to irksome and secluded duty at the state 
prison of Schlusselburg. Tliis unmerited affront 
filled her brother, Basil Mierowitz, with such fiery 
indignation, that but for the dread of compromising 
his whole family, he would have cast liis commis- 
sion at the feet of the imperious Catharine, and 
quitted the Kussian army ; but flight or exile must 
at once have followed the act. 

As it was, though detached and distant on the 
Livonian frontier, lie was now conceiving a scheme 
for vengeance, much more perlious to himself and 
to all concerned, and which actually aimed at the 
dethronement of the Empress Catharine ! 


CHAPTEK III. 


NATALIE. 

Wf HERE are few Russian ladies noWj who do 
V2/ not speak with equal facility, German, 
French, and English ; hut Hatalie Mierbwna and 
her cousin were then each mistress of them all, — 
and this was in the comparativ^ely barbarous time of 
Catharine II. 

Thus their acquaintance with European literature 
enabled them to excel in an easy and well-sup- 
ported conversation of which the old boyar, their 
kinsman, could make nothing ; and which they 
could embellish by their wit and power of quota- 
tion, and with an exquisite peculiarly 

their own. When this dangerous charm was added 
to the great beauty of Natalie, she could not but 
prove a perilous acquaintance for the young Scot- 
tish wanderer. 

Her loveliness was indeed great. 

She was a large, showy, and snowy-skinned 
beauty, almost voluptuous yet very graceful in 
form, with fine dark eyes, that were dreamy or 
sparkling by turns as emotion moved her ; long- 
lashed they were, and perhaps too heavily lidded. 

19 


20 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


Her hair was of the darkest brown, almost black ; 
her lips were full, but flexible, small and pouting 
when in repose, almost too large when she smiled, 
which was frequently. 

It was when she spoke of the Empress, that her 
white bosom heaved, and a fiery expression seemed 
to pervade her whole features. She said little, and 
that little was generally said with assumed gentle- 
ness or real reserve, for language cannot be too 
guarded in Hussia ; but her dark eyes flashed, her 
delicate nostrils dilated, her sliort upper lip quiv- 
ered, she threw back her proud head, and more 
than once Balgonie saw her white hands clenched ; 
for all the dove-like softness of her nature seemed 
to depart, when she thought of the affront that 
exile from Court had put upon her, and her whole 
family, even to delaying the marriage of her cousin 
Mariolizza to her brother Basil, to whom she was 
engaged — solemnly betrothed by a religious cere- 
mony. 

She took the arm of Balgonie, and led the way to 
the dining-room, which was lit by brilliant crystal 
girandoles, and heated, of course, by a peitchka, 
the greatest luxury of civilized life that can be 
found in a cold climate, and which warms a house 
more effectually than any grate of coals can do. 
Built on that side of the large, lofty, and magnifi- 
cent room which was farthest from the windows, it 
was formed of solid stone, with several carved 


NATALIE. 


21 


apertures, and lined with white shining porcelain ; 
within it, blazed a constant fire of billets and fag- 
gots, under the care of the dvornick, or house- 
porter, and these were furnished by the Count’s 
serfs or woodsmen from the adjacent forests. 

All made a sign of the cross in the Greek fashion, 
and seated themselves ; but weary and exhausted 
by his long ride and recent immersion hi a swollen 
and icy river, Balgonie found it almost impossible 
to partake of the supper that was pressed upon him : 
caviare on slices of bread to begin with, — “ caviare 
from the roe of the sturgeons of the Don,” as the 
Count informed him, — ^roasted capon and jugged 
hare, dried figs and conserves, prunes, and pastilla 
of fruit and honey compounded, together with the 
champagne, Rhine wine, and vodka, in silver tank- 
ards and goblets of jeweled Venetian crystal. 

The jaded traveler could only make a pretence 
of eating ; but he could drink deeply, for he was 
athirst; and more than one foaming goblet of 
sparkling Moselle was filled for him, till he became 
giddy and confused. Were the fumes of the wine 
mountmg to his head ? What was the Count say- 
ing in an undertone ? Was it of him that the 
cousins were talking in some strange language, and 
covertly exchanging smiles with their beautiful 
eyes ? “ Courage, Charlie,” thought he, “ this is a 

bad beginning ! ” 

Though people were not very particular as to a 


22 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


bumper more or less in those days anywhere, in 
Kussia least of all, an emotion of shame came over 
the young Scottish officer ; he felt his cheeks and 
forehead burn, and he made a vigorous effort to 
rally his senses, but in vain : he heard the voices of 
Natalie and of Mariolizza ; but he knew not what 
they said or what he replied, for he felt as one in a 
half-waking dream. They were talking merrily, 
however, in French, which is always spoken well by 
the Russians ; perhaps, because the tongue that can 
master Russ may achieve anything. 

After a time he mastered sufficient energy and 
sense to beg that he might be permitted to retire, 
as he had his journey to resume betimes on the 
morrow ; and he was escorted to the chamber by 
the Count in person. Its four corners seemed to be 
in rapid pursuit of each other now, and the floor 
and the cealing to be incessantly changing places ; 
then his senses reeled, and the light departed from 
his eyes. He found hunself fainting. 

The sudden and rapid journey from Novgorod, 
the lack of food and the toil he had undergone for 
one night and two entire days, while wandering 
with the treacherous Podatchkine, the crossing of 
the Louga, and the bruises he had unconsciously re- 
ceived from several pieces of floating ice, had all 
proved too much for his system, and brought on a 
relapse of an old camp fever from which he had 
suffered once when serving with the army in 


NATALIE. 


23 


Silesia, — and in the morning he was delirious. 

Though weak, bewildered, scared by the prospect 
of loitering thus when proceeding on urgent duty 
(for obedience and discipline become a second na- 
ture to the soldier), enduring a raging thirst and 
a burning pang that shot with each pulsation 
through his brain, stiff in every joint and covered 
with livid bruises, he had still strength left as dawn- 
ing day stole through the double sashes of his win- 
dows, to stagger from bed, and search for the 
dispatch, which, on the hazard of his life, he was 
to place in the hands of Bernikoff, the Governor of 
Schlusselburg. 

He hurriedly, and with a tremor that increased, 
examined each of his pockets in succession, then his 
sabretasche, and lastly the pocket of the robe-de- 
chambre ; but the dispatch — the dispatch of the 
Empress — entrusted to him as a chosen man by 
Lieutenant-General Weymarn was gone ! 

Lost, or abstracted, it W’as irretrievably gone / 

Was he the victim of .treachery or of a snare? 
Was it a dream that the voluptuous and beautiful 
Hatalie, with her snowy skin, her dreamy eyes, and 
her fascinating smile, had been hovering about him 
— a dream or a reality ? 

Alas ! he knew not ; for again the walls and 
windows were whirling round him in wild career, 
and he sank on the floor insensible. 

Poor Charlie Balgonie knew not that the morn- 


24 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


ing on wliicli he made this alarming discovery was 
that of the second day since his arrival at the Castle 
of Longa. 


CHAPTER lY. 


CORPORAL PODATOHKINB. 

^CARCELY had Charlie Balgonie achieved the 
^ passage of the Longa, and, in the dark, forced 
his panting horse up the wooded bank towards the 
lighted windows of the castle, then his guide and 
orderly, Corporal Mich ail Podatchkine, who, for 
reasons which were his own, and which shall ulti- 
mately be explained, had decoyed him many, many 
versts to the southward of his proper route and then 
abandoned him, while he still cautiously followed, 
and watched him plunge into the perilous stream — 
watched him in the hope that he might perish in 
its icy current ; Corporal Podatchkine, we say, had 
barely seen the officer’s safety was certain and as- 
sured, than he turned his horse’s head, and with a 
hoarse malediction on his bearded mouth, rode 
away in an opposite direction. 

The lighted windows of tlie Castle of Louga soon 
darkened and vanished in his rear ; the snow-flakes 
came thicker and faster on the icy blast, whitening 
his round bearskin cap and fur shoubah or cloak, 
and the untrimmed mane of his shaggy horse ; but 
with his long lance slung behind him, his knees up 

25 


26 / THE SECRET DISPATCH. 

to his saddle-bow, and his fierce, keen eyes peering 
out the way before him, the amiable Podatchkine, 
who, though a Livonian by birth, had the honor to 
hold the rank of corporal in a corps of Cossacks, 
rode on through the dense fir forest as unerringly 
as if every tree therein had been planted by his 
own warlike .hands. 

Ere long, with a grunt of satisfaction, he struck 
upon a track that led to the right and left, and he 
unhesitatingly pursued the latter. There were then 
none of those verst-posts, about ten feet high or so, 
such as may now be found by the side of the 
Pussian roads through the forests, or along the 
open steppe; but Podatchkine rode steadily on, 
pausing only now and then to un sling and grasp his 
spear, or give a fierce gleaming glance around him, 
while the nostrils of his thick snub-nose dilated, 
when a prolonged and melancholy howl, rising from 
the woody depths into the chill drear sky of night, 
announced that some wolf was rousing itself in 
its lair among the grass or in its den beside the 
river. 

Anon, he came to a place where the forest was 
partially cleared, and there stood a little hut, built 
of squared logs. The walls of this edifice were 
whitened artificially ; but the roof was rendered 
whiter still, by a coat of the fast-freezing soow. A 
bingle ray of smoky light streamed from the open- 
ing (whicli passed from a window) near the door. 


CORPORAL PODATCHKLNE. 


27 


on which Podatchkine, without dismounting struck 
three blows with the butt of his lance. 

Nicholas Paulovitch,” he exclaimed, “ are you 
within ? ” 

The door was soon unfastened, and thereat ap- 
peared a figure, not unlike an Esquimaux, bearing 
a pine torch. He was a man of great stature and 
muscular development, clad in a caftan of coarse, 
thick, and warm material, girt by a broad belt m 
which a long rusty knife was stuck ; he had on bark 
shoes and long leggings of sheepskin, which, like 
Bryan O’Linn’s breeches, had “ the skinny side out 
and the hairy side in ; ” and he cultivated one long 
lock of grizzled hair behind his right ear in the old 
fashion of the Black Cossacks ; but this appendage 
was concealed by the hood and tippet of fur which 
he wore. This man, however, did not belong to 
any of the nomadic military tribes, but was a spe- 
cies of Bussian gipsy, a half breed. 

He held up the pine torch, and its fiaring light 
tipped with a lurid, weird, and uncertain glow Ms 
fierce, tawny, and repulsive visage, causing his cun- 
ning and almond-shaped eye to gleam redly, like 
two carbuncles, from under their thick and impend- 
ing brows, which were nearly as shaggy as the 
moustache that blended vdth his greasy and un- 
combed beard ; and in the same light the head of 
Podatchkine’s lance and the hafts of his sabre, 
dagger, and pistols glittered at times, being the 


28 


THE SECBET DISPATCH. 


only bright parts of his remarkably dingy costume. 

“ Is it you, Mi(;hail Podatchkine — and alone f ” 
he asked surlily. 

“Yes; even so, alone. Dost think I have the 
evil eye about me that you stare so, Nicholas 
Paulovitch ? ” 

“ God foi’bid ! ” replied Nicholas with a shudder, 
for this idea is the grossest and the greatest of all 
Kussian superstitions ; “ but 1 expected two — your- 
self and another.” 

“ Who told you so ? ” 

“ Olga Paulowna, my sister, who yesterday saw 
you at Krejko.” 

“ True, I remember. Now listen, old friend and 
comrade ” 

“ Hush, the girl is within and may hear you.” 

“ Well,” said Podatchkine, lowering his voice, 
while the other extinguished his torch, half closed 
the door of his hut, and drew nearer the speaker, 
“by order of General Weymarn, Governor of St. 
Petersburg, General of the Cavalry, Director-Gen- 
eral of the Canals, Bridges, and Highways ” 

“ And the devil knows all what more ! ” said the 
other impatiently. “ Well ? ” 

“ I am ordered to guide this Carl Ivanovitch 
Balgonie, who is a stranger, to the gates of Schlus- 
selbuj’g, as he bears to Bernikoff a dispatch of im- 
portance ; but I have been promised a heavy sum 
» 


CORPORAL PODATOHKINE. 


29 


“ Ah ! how much say you ? ” 

“ I have said nothing yet.” 

“ But you spoke of a heavy sum.” 

“ Two hundred silver roubles.” 

‘‘ Two hundred silver rouldes ! ” exclaimed Nicho- 
las, opening his avaricious eyes with w'onder, and 
then closing them again, so that they looked like 
two narrow slits. 

“ Yes, every denusca^ if I, by fair means or by 
foul, prevent the delivery of that paper into the 
hands of old Bernikoff.” 

He whose dagger tickled the throat of Peter 
III. : and by whom are you offered this, friend 
Podatchkine ? ” 

“ I can trust you : well, by the Lieutenant Apollo 
Usakoff.” 

“ The grandson of the Hetman Mazeppa ! ” 

‘‘ The same ; and by Basil Mierowitz ” 

“ Well, and what the devil have I to do with all 
this ? ” growled the half-breed. 

“ Much : fifty roubles will be yours, Paulovitch, 
if you will assist me,” said Podatchkine in a husky 
whisper. 

“ Let us talk over this: dismount, and come in.” 

“Nay, there is Olga Paulowna: then I have 
other work to do ; but give me a drink, for I am 
sorely athirst.” 

The other speedily brought liim a painted bowl 
full of foamy quass, which the Cossack Corporal, 


30 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


for SO we may term him, drained to the dregs; 
though it is a liquor, to any but a Russian, horrible 
as the water of Cocytus. 

“ Let us be wary, friend Podatchkine,” said the 
woodman : “ tlie knout is not an angel, but it 
teaches us to tell the truth alike of ourselves and of 
others.” 

Refreshed by his bitter draught, the Corporal 
shook the gathering snow-flakes from the sleeves of 
his fur shoubah, and resumed somewhat garrul- 
ously : 

“My next instructions are, that the dispatch, 
which is from the Empress herself (whom God and 
our Lady of Kazen long preserve !), and which bears 
the imperial seal, shall never be delivered ; but 
must be obtained by me for Basil Mierowitz and. 
the Lieutenant TJsakoff, now detached upon the 
Livonian frontier, and who both know as little as I 
care, that its bearer is actually tlieir own dearest 
and most valued friend ! I misled the Hospodeen 
Balgonie, lured him to the river’s brink, and left 
him there, in the hope that he and his horse might 
become frozen on the steppe or in the forest, where 
I could rob him at ease ; but the man seems 
made of iron, and, to my astonishment, I saw him 
swim the Louga. I thought all gone, he, the dis- 
patch, and my 200 roubles, when he plunged his 
horse into the river ; but he stoutly won the oppo- 
site bank, and has made his way straight to the 


CORPORAL PODAtCHKINE. 


31 


dwelling of Count Mierowitz, where now, I doubt 
not, he is safely housed.” 

“ It seems to me, friend Podatchkine, that you 
took a great deal of useless trouble when you had 
your dagger and pistols,” said the other, suspici- 
ously. 

“ Is ay, if he was to perish thus, suspicion might 
too readily fall upon me ; for he is a favorite officer 
of the Empress, and of Weymarn too. My plan is 
this : I may get the dispatch to-night in yonder 
castle of Count Mierowitz.” 

“And if not?” 

“ Then I shall again lure and mislead Balgonie, 
and bring him here in the night.” 

“ What then ? ” asked the woodman doggedly. 

“How dull we are, Paulo vitch. We shall drug 
and drown him ; thus shall he die 'without a wound. 
I will take back the dispatch to Novgorod ; and 
you can carry the body on his horse to St. Peters- 
burg, where a sum will be given you for finding it. 
The poor stranger, they will say, has perished amid 
our keen Russian frosts, and that will be all. Nic- 
holas Paulovitch, the carcass will be well worth 
twenty roubles to thee.” 

“ And thy fifty ? ” 

“ You shall receive when the affair is over, and 
when you come to me at Novgorod, where I am 
quartered.” 

“ By the bones of my tribe, and by the sword 


, ^ 

M THE SECRET DISPATCH. 

that flames in the liand of the holy Michail, I am 
with you, Podatchkine ! ’’ exclaimed the half-breed 
with ferocious joy, mingling his gipsy cant with 
that of the Pussian church. Then they shook 
heartily their hard and dingy hands — hands that 
had wrought many a deed of merciless cruelty. 

“ And now, Paulo vitch, give me a light for my 
pipe, and let me begone.” 

A few minutes more and these worthy compa- 
triots had separated. 

Podatchkine rode somewhat leisurely to a ford 
that he knew of lower down the river, believing 
that in time the whole onus, and perhaps Suspicion, 
of Balgonie’s death (if it was necessary) might fall 
on the woodman, whom he had resolved to clieat of 
the promised fifty roubles if he could. 

He will play me false,” muttered Podatchkine. 
“ Is not the dog a gipsy ? Beware of the tamed 
wolf, of the baptized Jew, and the enemy who has 
made it up ; why should I not delude him who will 
readily delude me ? ” 

Our enterprising Corporal was correct in his esti- 
mate of Nicholas Paulovitch ; for, at the same mo- 
ment, that personage, while wrapped in his filthy 
sheepskin (caring nothing for the comfort of any 
other bed than the floor), was considering how he 
might drug and drown both the officer and his 
treacherous guide, sell both their bodies at the near- 
est military post, and, by taking the dispatch to 


CORPORAL PODATCHKmE. 


33 


Novgorod himself, obtain the entire reward offered 
for it by the Lieutenants Mie^owitz and Usakoff, or 
still more, perhaps, by delivering it to the Empress ! 

There was a third person who had overheard the 
first savage plot, and who felt her heart stirred 
with pity and terror for Balgonie, who had given 
her a silver kopec at Krejko but yesterday, — the 
gipsy girl, Olga Paulowna, the sister of Nicholas 
Paulo vitch ; and she resolved to baffle both conspir- 
ators if she could. 

It was in perfect ignorance of who might be the 
bearer of that dispatch (with the contents of which 
a spy had acquainted them) that the two offlcers, 
who ’were now engaged in an extensive and danger- 
ous political and military conspiracy, contrived to 
have Podatchkine, in the character of a guide and 
orderly, sent upon the trail of one who was really 
their most valued friend and comrade ; though, as 
a foreigner and soldier of fortune, they deemed it 
proper to keep him as yet in total ignorance of 
their daring hopes and plans. 


CHAPTEE Y. 


THE DAGGER OF BERNIKOFF. 

I T may now be necessary to afford the reader a 
little historical insight as to what it was that 
hinged on this important dispatch of the Scottish 
officer, Balgonie. 

When the Emperor Peter II. died of small-pox 
(just on the eve of his marriage), closing a short 
reign of three years of stormy trouble and dark in- 
trigue, the whole male issue of Peter the Great of 
Eussia became extinct. 

The Duke of Holstein, son of his eldest daugh- 
ter, 'was entitled to the throne ; • but the Eussians, 
for certain cogent political reasons, filled that peril- 
ous seat with Anne, Duchess of Courland, daughter 
of Ivan, Peter’s eldest brother. Governed by her 
favorite Biron, on whom she bestowed the Duchy 
of Courland, she broke through all the limits which 
growing civilization had imposed upon the power of 
the Czars ; she engaged in many useless wars, lost 
vast treasures and more than a hundred thousand 
men in strife with the Turks, and closing an in- 
glorious reign, was succeeded by one who will 
shortlv be introduced to the reader, Ivan Antono- 

"34 


THE DAGGER OF BERNIKOFF. 


35 


vitch, or John IV., son of her niece, the Princess 
of Mechlenburg, an infant only six months old. 
This Princess sent Biron, the Begent to the usual 
place of Muscovite seclusion, Siberia, and assumed 
the administratorship during the minority of her son. 

This state of affairs was but of short duration 
when Elizabeth, daughter of Peter the Great, hav- 
ing a strong party, seized the crown, banished the 
entire family of Mechlenburg, and deposing the 
infant monarch, Ivan IV., confined him for life a 
prisoner of state in the great Castle of Schlussel- 
burg, where he had been for twenty-three years, at 
the period when our narrative opens. 

To mention him in conversation, and still more 
to possess a coin bearing his effigy, incurred the 
guilt and insured the punishment of treason ! More 
than twenty yeai'S- after the deposition of this tran- 
sitory emperor, a German tradesman, who had 
worked long as a cabinet-maker at St. Petersburg, 
went to Cronstadt, intending then to embark for 
his native city, Lubeck. As it was not permitted 
to carry out of Bussia above a certain quantity of 
specie, an officer of customs asked the German 
“ what he had with him ? ” Only a few roubles 
to pay for my passage,” he replied ; and on being 
commanded to show them, one was discovered hav- 
ing the effigy of Ivan IV. ! In vain did the un- 
happy tradesman protest that he neither knew he 
had such a coin, nor from whom he had received it. 


36 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


Death was the penalty ; but his goods were confis' 
cated, and he was condemned to perpetual imprison- 
ment in the mines of Siberia. 

The Empress Elizabeth died the victim of intem- 
perance ; and while poor Prince Ivan — an un- 
crowned emperor, a prisoner without a crime — was 
left to pine in the Castle of Schlusselburg, the 
sceptre was given to the feeble and dissipated Peter 
III., the Imsband of the beautiful, voluptuous, and 
talented Catharine II., daughter of a petty prince, 
but descended from the ancient house of Servestan, 
■ — a woman whom, in three short months after their 
coronation, he contrived to disgust by his political 
innovations, and still more by his amatory incon- 
stancy ; so it was resolved to get rid of Peter, who 
was then in his thirty-fourth year. 

Peter I. had nearly lost Pussia by compelling the 
people to cut off the tails of then’ coats ; and Peter 
III. became equally unpopular by ordering them to 
trim their vast beards, and by putting his troops 
in the Prussian uniform. Crowned heads should 
leave such matters to tailors and tonsors ; but he 
certainly abolished the secret tribunal with its con- 
tingent horrors, and recalled many a poor exile from 
Siberia. 

A party was formed for his dethronement: so 
•one evening in July, 1762, when he was surrounded 
by his guard of Ilolsteiners, and amusing himself 
with his flower garden (he was a great botanist), 


THE DAGGER OF BERNIKOFF. 


37 


and with some of his beantiful mistresses at the 
palace of Orienhanm, — particularly the Countess 
of Woronzow, to whose allurements he had aband- 
oned himself, — the exasperated Empress prepared to 
strike a final blow for Kussia and for herself. 

Putting on a uniform of old Pussian Guards be- 
longing to her future favorite, Captain Ylasfief, 
with the most coquettish grace, this young and 
beautiful, but in some respects terrible woman bor- 
rowed from the nobles around her all the acces- 
sories of a complete military toilette : of Basil 
Mierowitz, a hat ; of Count Orlolf, a scarf ; of 
Colonel Bernikoif, a belt ; of some one else, a sword. 
Over all, she wore the blue ribbon of the first order 
of the Empire, which her impolitic liusband had 
laid aside for that of Prussia. 

The drums beat to arms : in this strange guise 
she showed herself to the troops, who were now 
mustered to the number of twenty thousand men in 
the great square of St. Petersburg, where the sight 
of the uniform of the old guard, which had been 
forced to give place to Peter’s cherished Holstein- 
ers, raised bursts of acclamation, quite as much as 
the appearance of Catharine, who was then in the 
full fiower of her robust beauty, perfectly elegant 
in figure, and purely feminine from her shoulders 
to her feet, which were remarkably handsome, and 
of which she was very proud.” Her nose was 
aquiline, her eyes blue with black lashes, and her 


38 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


hair, a brilliant auburn, was curling on her sboub 
ders. Thus, has an eje-witness described her. 

The regiments began to file off against the Em- 
peror, and little knowing the end of the expedition ; 
among the troops on this night marched Charlie 
Balgonie, with the colors of the Regiment of 
Smolensko on his shoulder. 

Everywhere the rebellious Empress was received 
with enthusiasm, and the Great Chancellor Woro- 
slafP, who was sent against her, was among the first 
to join her party. 

The Emperor, abandoning his fiowers and his 
fair ones, fled to his yacht or galley, which was 
rowed to Cronstadt, of which his enemy, the High 
Admiral Talizine, had already made himself master. 
The imperial galley (relates M. Rulhi^re in his 
“ Ilistoire sur la Revolution de Russie ”) came 
under the ramparts in the night, while the great 
alarm bells rung, the drums were beaten and scarlet 
rockets ascended in showers from the dark mass of 
the Castle of Kronslot ; and then, all along the line 
of fortifications, 'Peter saw two hundred port fires 
shedding tlieir weird unearthly glare through the 
yawning embrasures upon the twilight sea and sky 
— each port-fire beside a loaded cannon — loaded 
against himself ! 

This was at ten o’clock ; but ere the great oars of 
the galley were lain in, or the anchor dropped, a 
sentinel challenged : 


THE DAGGER OF BERNIKOFF. 


39 


Who comes there ? ” 

^^His Imperial Majesty the Emperor,” replied 
the Captain of the galley, who was standing on its 
gilded prow. 

There is no longer any Emperor ! ” was the 
stern reply of some one on the ramparts. 

“ ’Tis false ! I am here — I, Peter Antonovitch,” 
said the Emperor, growing pale at these daring and 
terrible words, as he stood up and threw back his 
cloak to show himself and his well-known Prussian 
star, by the clear, lingering twilight of the northern 
evening. 

“ Steer off,” shouted Admiral Talizine, “ or, by 
our Lady of Kazen, I will fire on you ! ” 

“We are going — give us but time,” cried the 
Captain hopelessly, through his speaking-trumpet. 

At that moment a thousand voices on the ram- 
parts shouted on the still twilight air — 

Long live the Empress Catharine II. ! ” 

. On hearing this, Peter burst into tears, and fell 
back into the arms of his attendants, saying : — 

“ The conspiracy is general — from the first days 
of my short reign I have seen it coming ! ” 

He was soon after abandoned by all, even by his 
obnoxious Holstein Guards, who surrendered to the 
Hegiments of Smolensko and Yalikolutz ; and then 
he was committed by his wife, prisoner of state, to 
the Castle of Hobscli, in a solitary place, eighteen 
miles from St. Petersburg. Six days afterwards 


40 


THP] SECRET DISPATCH. 


had only elapsed, when it was suggested that 
though young Ivan was still lingering a captive at 
Schlusselburg, and some were not without hopes of 
replacing liim on the throne, tranquillity could not 
be perfectly restored while Peter lived, though 
lonely and abandoned now. 

His wife’s lovers and favorites came to this deci- 
sion, speedily ; so, late one afternoon, three horse- 
men arrived at the residence of the fallen Emperor. 
They were Count OrlofP, who had in his breast 
a laced handkerchief of the Empress, the grim 
Colonel Bernikoff, and a Hospodeen or gentleman, 
wlio announced that they had come to sup with 
him ; and, according to the Bussian fashion, glasses 
of brandy were served round before they sat down. 

In that given to the Emperor was poison. 

Whether, adds tlie historian we quote, they were 
in haste to carry back their dark tidings, or whether 
the horror of the deed made them anxious to finish 
it, none can know ; but to hasten theii* terrible 
work, they insisted on giving him another glass. 

Already the subtle poison was diffusing itself 
through the vitals of the unhappy Emperor ; and 
now, struck by the pallor of their faces and the fe- 
rocious expression of their eyes, he started back, 
refused the proffered glass, and despairingly sum- 
moned assistance. 

They then flung themselves upon him, and Cbunt 
Orloff, pulling from Ids breast the handkerchief lie 


THE DAGGER OF BERNIKOFF. 41 

had concealed there, threw it over the mouth of 
Peter, to gag him and stifle his cries. He was 
dashed again and again to the floor, where he de- 
fended himself against his assassins with all the 
fury that terror of death and despair could inspire. 

Two young officers of the guard now rushed in, 
and, as the orders of all were to slay Peter without 
a wound, they knotted the handkerchief round his 
neck to strangle him, while the Count pressed his 
knees upon his breast. 

Still the dying Emperor struggled so fearfully 
that the ferocious Bernikofl, losing all patience, 
plunged a dagger into his throat; and thus, 
poisoned, stabbed, and strangled, he expired with- 
out further resistance. 

A few hours after this, pale, dishevelled, and 
covered with blood, dust and perspiration, with torn 
garments and distobed bearing, Count Orlofl ap- 
peared before the Empress. She arose in silence,” 
says M. Pulhiere, and passed into an inner room, 
whither he followed her. Some minutes after, she 
called Count Panin, who was already named her 
minister, and informed him that the Emperor was 
dead, and consulted with him upon the mode of 
announcing his demise to the people.” 

It was given out that he had died a natural death. 

The wound inflicted by Bernikofl’s dagger was 
carefully sewed up ; the oriflce was neatly covered 
by a piece of gold-beater’s skin ; and the body, in 


4 ^ 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


an old green regimental coat, with four wax candles 
as a funeral state, was exposed for three days to the 
people. The Russians were permitted to wear 
their beards ; the Empress poured out her afflictions 
in a ukase, and offered up her prayers, as became a 
widow, in the church of our holy Lady of Kazan. 

And it was in the service of this charming 
people, 

‘ ' this new and polished nation, 

Whose names want nothing but pronounciation,” 

— a people, who, in the arts of peace, were little 
better than the Scots when James I. was butchered 
in the Black Friary at Perth, or the men of “Merry 
England ” when her crook-backed Dick was smoth- 
ering the royal babies in the Tower — that, by an 
adverse fate, our hero found himself a soldier of 
fortune, when, as before stated, old George III. 
was King of the British Isles, “ the first gentleman 
in Europe” was a sinless infant on his mother’s 
knee. 

After Peter was laid in his grave, and Catharine 
w^as firmly seated on his throne, her conduct was 
cautious and judicious, and, as even her enemies ad- 
mitted, at times magnanimous ; yet frightful atro- 
cities were committed during her reign, when she 
degenerated into ferocity and debauchery. 

The captivity of the young and innocent Ivan in 
Schlusselburg, in charge of the unscrupulous Ber- 
nikoff, Captain Vlasfief, and a Lieutenant named 


The dagger of bernikoff. 


43 


Tschekin — three officers in whom Catharine had 
implicit reliance — seemed more helpless now than 
ever when the sceptre was in her firm grasp. 

Now that Peter was disposed of, her only dread 
consisted in the chance of Ivan’s escape; so his 
guards were doubled, and her orders to Bernikoff 
concerning him were to ensure his detention even 
by death if necessary ; and it was concerning this 
very dread that Captain Charles Balgonie was pro- 
ceeding with a dispatch from Novgorod, where 
Catharine, with some of her favorites and courtiers, 
was residing for a time in the ancient palace of the 
Czars. 


GHAPTEE IL 


THE PALATINE 

a OEPOEAL PODATCHKIEE was an admir- 
able specimen of his own type of Eussian, — 
one wdio was more afraid of neglecting Lent than 
of murdering his fellow-being, especially if that 
fellow-being was a foreigner ; ‘‘ for,” saith M. L’ 
Abbe Chappe at this time, “they do not reckon 
foreigners among the number of their brethren.” 

His thick black scrubby liair was cut straight 
across the forehead in a line with the eyebrows, and 
at each side it hung perpendicularly down below 
the ears, in the old Eussian and Mediaeval fashion, 
and was, moreover, cut square across the neck be- 
hind, just as the English wore theirs in the days of 
Eichard III. ; and he kept alternately scratching 
and smoothing his rugged front, nervously and as- 
siduously, when he removed his fur Cossack cap ; 
and, full of affected concern, even to exhibiting 
tears in his small cunning eyes, presented himself, 
through the bribed auspices of the dvornick, to 
Hatalie Mierowna next morning, and besought her 
to have him “conducted to the chamber of his 
brave, his beloved Captain, his comrade and brother, 
44 


THE PALATINE. 


45 


who was, he now learned, seriously ill, helpless, and 
delirious,” — and, in fact, just as the cunning Cor- 
poral wished him to be. 

There he found Balgonie, certainly too ill and 
weak either to recognize him or understand what he 
was about ; so the faithful Cossack made a rapid 
and skilful investigation of all the officer’s pockets, 
and especially his sabretasche, for the dispatch. 

i^^ot a vestige of it was to be found. 

“ What the devil can he have done with it ? ” 
muttered the bewildered Corporal, as he thought of 
his 200 silver roubles ; can he have lost it in the 
river, or swallowed it ? ” 

The truth is, that Natalie Micro wna had her 
doubts about the fidelity of Podatchkiue, and even 
of some of her own domestics, and aware of the risk 
run by the stranger if he lost a dispatch of the Em- 
^ press, she had, prior to the introduction of the Cor- 
poral, secured the document, and at that moment it 
was hidden in her own fair bosom until she could 
secure it in a safer place. 

' In her bosom ! Poor Natalie ! Alas, she little 
knew its contents, and the horrors they were yet to 
produce. 

Baffled thus in his attempt to secure it, there was 
no resource for the faithful warrier of the steppes 
now but to take up his quarters, which he was 
nothing loth to do, at the Castle of the Longa, and 
there quietly and comfortably to smoke his pipe by 


46 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


the kitchen stove ; await the recovery or the death, 
he cared not which, of Balgonie; and to concert 
further measures with the huge gipsy, Nicholas 
Paulo vitch, whom he saw daily. 

It was no feverish dream of Balgonie that Natalie 
Mierowna had been hovering about his bedside; 
for she and her consin Mariolizza had been his 
especial nurses. 

In less than three days the feverish delirium sub- 
sided, sense completely returned, and the young 
Captain appeared to be laboring under a species of 
influenza. A cold, as we understand that homely 
but troublesome kind of ailment in foggy Britain, 
is almost unknown in the latitude of St. Petersburg. 
“ It is,” says Dr. Granville, indigenous to Eng- 
land, and, above all, to London ; ” yet we fear Bal- 
gonie had a most unromantic and unmistakable 
cold, consequent on his immersion in the icy Louga, 
together with an aguish shivering, which rendered 
the quitting of his couch, and betaking himself to 
the saddle, as yet quite impossible. 

Balgonie had an insatiable thirst : he liad visions 
of iced champagne ; but in lieu, got only tea-punch, 
if we may so call it — ^being tea in the fashion still 
taken by the Bussians (who hold that milk spoils 
it), with a slice of lemon or preserved fruit ; and as 
he got stronger, Katinki, a strapping Polish dam- 
sel with fine black eyes, who was Natalie’s particu- 
lar follower, added tliereto a dash of rum and then 


THE PALATINE. 


47 


tsvetochny^ or flowery tea, with cakes, which the 
Captain seemed to relish all the more when he 
understood them to be made by the white hands of 
Natalie : an appreciation which showed a decided 
improvement in the young officer’s health. But — 
‘‘ My dispatch,” he‘ frequently said aloud, — “ I 
must begone with my dispatch ! ” 

“Might it not be entrusted to the Corporal 
Podatchkine ? ” asked Natalie one morning, as she 
personally gave him his warm and soothing drink 
with her own hand, Katinka standing demm’ely by 
with a silver salver. 

“ Impossible, Hosphoza, for so I may call you ; 
an officer alone can carry a dispatch of the Empress. 
Its contents are most urgent: this delay, over 
which I have no control, may be visited by royal 
disfavor, even punishment ; and I fear that the air 
of Tobolsk or Irkutsk would ill suit a Scotsman’s 
lungs, Natalie Mierowna.’! 

“Yet tarry here you must,” said she, with a 
smile, the beauty of which proved very bewildering : 
“ the Louga is coated with ice this morning, but 
not so thick, however, that it might not be broken by 
throwing a five-kopec piece from here ; but to 
travel yet would only kill you, Carl Ivanovitch, and 
cannot be thought of just now.” 

Then as slie glided away, with her beaming smile, 
her white hands and taper arms, her rustling dress 
of scarlet silk trimmed with snowy miniver, and 


48 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


all the sense of perfume that pervaded her, Bal- 
gonie sighed wearily yet pleasantly, and half 
thought that beautiful figure a dream, as he turned 
on his soft and luxurious pillow, and marvelled 
whether his past or his present existence was the 
real one. 

A captain in the ducal Regiment of Smolensko, 
and not yet twenty-five ! Some ten years ago, his 
future seemed to point to a very different course of 
life. 

Far from Russian steppes and icy streams, their 
forests and barbarity, his mind had been wandering 
home to Britain’s happier shore ; and he might 
have said with the Bard who sang the ‘‘ Com’se of 
Time,” — 

“ Nor do I of that Isle remember aught, 

Of prospect more sublime and beautiful, 

Than Scotia’s northern battlement of hills. 

Which first I from my father’s house beheld, 

At dawn of life ; beloved in memory still, 

And standard yet of rural imagery.” 

His story is a brief one, and not very startling, 
save for its rapid career of injustice. 

Charles Balgonie, son of John Balgonie of that 
Ilk in Strathearn, had come into the world during 
that w’-hich was perhaps the most stupid, lifeless, and 
impoverished era of Scottish existence, the middle 
of the reign of George II. ; when the country was 
without trade, energy, or enterprise, and when noth- 
ing flourished save that which prospers there more 


THE PALATINE. 


49 


than ever even under the rule of her present Ma- 
jesty, and will do so apparently unto the end of 
time, — gloomy fanaticism and canting hypocrisy: 
more among the laity certainly, who make a trade 
and cloak of outward religion, than among the 
clergy, who dare not be liberal, even if so disposed; 
for without a public and noisy exhibition of sanctity, 
few have ever had much chance of place or profit 
north of the Tweed. 

Moreover, Charlie was born at a time when to be 
a Scotsman or an Irishman was almost a political 
crime in the eyes of their somewhat illiberal fellow- 
subjects, and when for either to attain eminence in 
the service of their native country was nearly an im- 
possibility; and hence the Scots crowded to the 
armies and fieets of Russia and Holland, and the 
Irish to those of Fance and Spain. 

By the early death of his parents, Charlie had 
been cast, in his extreme boyhood, upon the tender 
mercies of a bachelor uncle, Mr. Gamaliel Bab 
gonie, a hard-hearted, grasping and avaricious mer- 
chant in Dundee — one who was a noisy exhibitor of 
religion, a fervent expounder of crooked texts, and, 
of course, and Elder of the Kirk ; a great quoter of 
Scripture upon unnecessary occasions ; one who al- 
ways wore garments of sad-coloured broad cloth, 
with a spotless white cravat, and whose quavering 
voice and meek but cunning eyes were frequently 
uplifted against the enormities, the wickedness, and 


50 


THE SECRET DISPATCH* 


“ the temptawtions and tribulawtions of this weary 
world ; ” and who was, moreover, a vehement des- 
piser of that which ho stigmatized as “ its wretched 
dross,” hut which he left no means, fair or foul, un- 
tried to acquire. 

In the lovely vale of Strathearn — one of the 
most exquisite tracts of verdant scenery in Scotland 
— stood the liome of Charlie Balgonie. In his de- 
lirium, the present had fled, and the past returned. 
He had been a boy again at his father’s knee — a 
child with his curly head nestling on his smiling 
mother’s breast; again, in fancy, liad her kisses 
rested on his cheek, and her soft voice lingered lov- 
ingly in his ear ; again had he felt all that happi- 
ness, perfect trust, and security which the boy feels 
by his father’s hearth, and the man, in after life, 
never more ! 

He heard not the hoarse Louga crashing down its 
ice-blocks to the Baltic Sea ; but the gentle mur- 
mur of the Earn, flowing from the wooded hills of 
Comrie towards the broad blue bosom of the Tay 
— the Earn, where many a time and oft he had 
lured the brown trout and the speckled salmon from 
the deep, dark pools, near the old battle-cross of 
Dupplin and the Birks of Invermay. Again he had 
heard the leaves rustle pleasantly in the summer 
woods, where he had nutted and birdnested when a 
boy ; and he had seen, in a vivid dream, his glori- 
ous native valley where it narrows at Dunira ; and 


THE PALATINE. 


51 


far beyond, the blue ridges of the mighty Gram- 
pians, lifting their summits, alp on alp, to the 
clouds, eternal and unchanged as when the foiled 
legions of Julius Agricola fled along their slopes in 
rout and disorder. 

On the death of his parents his small paternal 
estate of a few hundreds per annum would have be- 
come, as all might have supposed, his inheritance ; 
but the relation before mentioned — the paternal 
uncle, Gamaliel, a man of the strictest probity, and 
of that which was equally valued in Scotland, ex- 
treme sanctimony ; one who, on the funeral day, 
had shed abundance of tears at the uncertainty of 
life, and had excelled even the minister in prayer 
and in warsling wi’ the diel ” {i. e., wrestling with 
Satan) — suddenly produced a will, by which, to the 
profound astonishment of all, the entire estate was 
left to him as a return for certain loans and sums 
advanced to the deceased, ,of which, however, no 
proof could be found ; but it was a veritable death- 
bed will, written accurately by a notary, and duly 
signetted with the autograph of “ John Balgonie of 
yt Ilk.” 

Though tremulous and shaky, — strangely so, — 
and rather unlike the usual signature of the de- 
c€>ased laird, three men there were, accounted good, 
worthy, and religious men, who solemnly deposed 
to having seen “ the hand of the dead man pen those 
four words.” 


52 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


It was a case which made some noise in those 
days, because thirty-six hours after the alleged sig- 
nature was given John Balgonie died* 

The law of Scotland requires that, after framing 
and signing such a deed, the testator must have 
been able to go once at least to church or market.. 
How it came to pass we know not now, but the dis- 
pute, though without a basis, w^as brought before 
the Supreme Court by some friends of the orphan, 
for there were not a few persons in Strathearn who 
alleged that John Balgonie’s hand had certainly 
traced the signature which was sworn to so solemn- 
ly as his, — but had done so after death : the pen 
being placed in the fingers of the corpse, which 
were guided by those of the pious and vrorthy 
merchant of Dundee, who wanted his nephew’s 
little patrimony in aid of certain speculations of his 
own. 

Pending a decision, the bereaved boy was re- 
moved to the busy town on Tay side, and was left 
to solace^ his sorrows at school, prior, as he sup- 
posed, to becoming a drudge in his affectionate 
uncle’s counting-house, when the last of his slender 
inheritance had been frittered away in the fangs of 
the law. 

One day — ^poor Charlie never forgot it — his 
worthy Uncle Gam returned from Edinburgh by 
the packet. The case had been decided against him, 
and the Court was about to name trustees to look 


THE PALATINE. 


53 


after the estate of the orphan hoy : so that boy 
learned long after. Mr. Gamaliel Balgonie was 
unusually grave, stern, and abstracted ; bat he de- 
liberately seated himself at his desk, and while 
humming, as was his wont, a verse of a psahn, he 
penned a letter addressed to the captain of a vessel 
then lying in harbor, and gave it to his nephew 
for immediate delivery, desiring him to wait for the 
answer. 

Charlie remarked that Uncle Gam did not, ac- 
cording to his usual careful custom keep any copy 
of this letter ; and that it was wi’itten in a hand so 
unlike his usual penmanship as to be completely 
disguised. 

The boy, then in his fifteenth year, started on his 
errand with alacrity. It was better to be out amid 
the bustle of the sunlighted quayfe, than drudging 
with a quill in the sombre merchant’s ofiice in a 
narrow gloomy alley of Dundee. He soon found 
the ship, which was moored at some distance from 
the shore, with her fore-topsails loose, and blue- 
peter flying at the fore, to indicate that she was 
ready for sea ; yet Charlie had no suspicion of the 
trap into which he was running, or the cruel fate 
that awaited him. 

The skipper, a rough, surly, and brutal-looking 
man, eyed the boy keenly, while tearing the letter 
into minute fragments, after he had perused it, with 
a grim smile of satisfaction. He then went to a 


54 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


locker, where he poured out a glass of something 
that seemed to be port-wine. 

“ Drink that, my lad,” said he, “ while I write 
an answer to your uncle.” 

Charlie, half afraid to refuse, though the skip- 
per’s bearing began to inspire him with distrust, 
drained the glass; but scarcely had he done so 
when the cabin seemed to be whirling round him ; 
he thouglit that he was becoming sea-sick, and was 
in the act of staggering towards the cabin stairs, 
when he was felled to the floor by a blow from the 
skipper’s heavy hand — a blow dealt cruelly and un- 
sparingly. 

He recovered consciousness some time after, to 
And himself — stiff, sore, and bloody, from a wound 
in the temple — lying on deck in the moonlight, with 
some twenty-flve other boys, several of whom were 
still in the same state of stupor or intoxication in 
which they had been brought on board. Others 
were loudly lamenting their parents and brothers 
or sisters they never more would see, and all were 
more or less covered with blows and bruises. To 
his horror and dismay, Charlie now found that the 
ship was at sea, and running between the dangerous 
reef known as the Bell Bock and the flat sandy 
shore of Barrie ; and that, through the machinations 
of Uncle Gamaliel, he had been lured in to the hands 
of one of the most notorious plantation-crimps that 
ever infested the Scottish coast — Captain Zachariah 


THE PALATINE. 


55 


Coffin, of New England, whose craft, a Palatine ship, 
the Piscatona, was a letter of marque, carrying 
twelve six-pounders and fighting her own way. 

Many miserable little fellows who had been lured 
to a certain den in Aberdeen, and there drugged, 
robbed, and manacled, were brought on board the 
Palatine ship as she lay off Girdleness and burned 
three red lights, in the night, as a private and con- 
certed signal with the crimps ashore : and some of 
these same crimps were discovered, in after years, 
to have actually been the magistrates of the city ! 

After this, the Piscotana was hauled up, in order 
to go north about bj" Cape Wrath, having on board 
nearly fifty boys, who were to ])e sold as slaves to 
the highest bidder in Virginia ; for nowhere was 
the infamous crime of kidnapping carried to a 
greater excess, even during the early years of 
George the Third’s reign, than in the neighborhood 
of the Granite City — where, in some instances, 
whole families disappeared, and their horror-strick- 
en and bewildered parents died broken-hearted and 
insane. 

Among the little Palatines — a name given by 
Americans to individuals who were thus kidnapped 
— some there were who pined and wept for home ; 
and some who built castles in the air, and looked to 
America as a land of promise. Others there were 
who schemed out vengeance, and were sullen. Among 
the latter was our hero, who hoped yet to repay his 


66 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


wrongs on Uncle Gam, but meanwhile was knocked 
about mercilessly by the sullen skipper, and was so 
repeatedly rope’s-ended by him, that he was often a 
mass of blood and bruises ; and then, like a poor 
little victim, as he certainly was, Charlie would 
creep away into a corner, or skulk between the lee, 
carronades, where the salt spray flew over him, and 
mingled with the tears he wept so unavailingly, for 
those once tender and affectionate parents who were 
lying side by side in their graves, in sunny Strath- 
earn, far, far away. 

Many times, after being beaten cruelly, he was 
deprived of food for hours and put in the bilboes- 
where the captain amused himself by hunting a 
savage dog upon him. 

But his time of vengeance was coming ! 

Storms came on when the Piscatona entered the 
Bentland Firth ; and four days after Dunnet Head 
with its flinty brow, four hundred feet in heiglit, 
had vanished into the wrack and mist astern, a sud 
den cry of Are caused every heart to thrill on board 
the lawless vessel. 

Whether an act of treachery or not, it was im- 
possible to ascertain ; but it had broken out near 
the ship's magazine, to which it communicated with 
frightful rapidity ; for suddenly, while the crew 
were all running fore and aft with buckets, a 
dreadful explosion seemed to rend the Piscatona in 
two. Half of the main-deck was blown away with 


THE PALATINE. 


57 


two of the boats. A whirl-wind of fragments flew 
in every direction ; and then the flames shot into 
the air in scorching volumes, which soon set the 
courses and top-gallant sails on Are. 

Discipline, or such a system of it as Zachariah 
Coffin maintained on hoard, was totally at an end. 
Some of the crew lowered the only remaining boat, 
and fought like wild beasts for possession of it, 
knocking each other into the water without mercy. 
Captain Coffin cocked his pistols at the gangway, 
shot one man dead, and swore with a dreadful oath 
that he would kill the next who dared to precede 
him; but he was struck from behind by an iron 
marline-spike, and falling, together with his savage 
dog, into the flaming gulf that yawned amidships, 
was seen no more. 

Some of the crew ultimately pushed off in the 
boat ; others sprang overboard and held on to spars 
and booms. But these and nearly all the little Pala- 
tines perished miserably, after being half scorched. 
Some were crushed to death by the falling yards 
and masts. Many held on to the fore and main 
chains, till these became so unbearably hot, that 
they had to drop off, with screams of despair — when 
they sank, faint, weary, and helpless, to the bottom 
at last. 

How it all happened Charlie Balgonie never 
knew. But hours after the whole affair was over, 
and the detested Piscatona had burned down to her 


58 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


water-line and sunk, leaving all the sea around her 
discolored and covered with floating pieces of 
charred wood and the buoyant pai’ts of her cargo, 
he found himself adrift in the wide and stormy 
Pentland Firth ; but wedged with comparative 
safety in a large fragment of the fore-top, to which, 
the yard being still attached by the sling, a certain 
amount of steadiness was given ; yet his heart 
leaped painfully, each time, when the fragment of 
wreck rose on the summit of a green glassy wave, 
or went surging down into the dark and watery 
trough between. 

To add to the terrors of his lonely situation, the 
sun had sunk amid gloomy purple clouds, and a 
rainy night was drawing on. Half drowned, per- 
haps, the poor boy soon became faint and exhausted, 
and would seem to have dropped into a species of 
stupor ; for when roused by the sound of strange 
voices, he found himself close by a great and tow- 
ering ship, which lay to, now right in the wind’s 
eye with her main-yard aback, and her gunports 
I and hammock nettings full of weatherbeaten faces, 
gazing at him with eagerness and curiosity in the 
twilight, while a boat was lowered from the davits 
and pulled steadily towards him by six sailors clad 
in dark green. 

She proved to be a Russian 50-gun ship, the Anne 
Ivanowna, commanded by Thomas Mackenzie, one 
of the many Scottish admirals who have bravely 


/ 


THE PALATINE. 59 

carried the Russian flag in the Baltic and the Black 
Sea, the same officer who a few years after was to 
build the great harbor and forts of Sebastopol, at 
the little Tartar village then known as Actiare. 

His youthful countryman became jproUgi. 

The worthy admiral sought to made a sailor of 
the rescued Palatine ; but the latter had seen quite 
enough of the sea while on board the Piscatona, 
and while he was clinging like a limpet or barnacle 
to the piece of drifting wi*eck ; so he became a 
soldier, and served under General Ochterlony, of 
Guynd, in the Regiment of Smolensko, where, as a 
cadet, his superior, smartness, intelligence and edu- 
cation, not less than his courage, soon distinguished 
him among his thick-pated Russian comrades : 
thus, in less than ten years, he became, as we And 
him. Captain Carl Ivanovitch Balgonie, the most 
trusted aide-de-camp of Lieutenant-General Wey- 
marn, Commander-in-Chief of the City and Dis- 
trict of St. Petersburg. 


CHAPTEE VII. 


THE SOLDIER OF THE CZARINA. 

afQOU can never know, Ivanovitch Balgonie, 
qJ how much I pitied you — ” 

“ You lady ? ” was the joyous repose. 

“ That is, I and Mariolizza,” said Natalie 
Mierowna, slightly blushing (the Eussians always 
speak thus, putting the personal pronoun first), 
“when we found you sunk on a fever- bed, in a 
foreign land, so far from your country, your friends, 
your mother, perhaps ; for you are young enough, 
I think, to miss her still, at such a time, although a 
soldier.” 

“ Far indeed, in many ways ! ” replied Balgonie, 
with a bitter smile, as he thought of Uncle Gam 
and the Palatine ship ; or perhaps it was illness that 
had weakened him. “ I have a country to which, 
more than probable, I shall never return; but 
father, mother, or friends, I have none there: all 
who loved me once, have gone to the silent grave 
before me.” 

“ All ? ” 

“ Yes, lady.” 

“ But you are making many friends in Eussia, 
60 


THE SOLDIER OF THE CZARINA. 


61 


said Mai’iolizza, cheerfullj : “ there are mj cousin 
Basil Mierowitz, and mj brother Apollo Usakoff, 
who both, I know, love yon as a brother.” 

“ True ; and most grateful am I to them for their 
regard, for both are polished gentlemen. I have 
old General Weymarn, too, though I know not 
what he will think of this delay in delivering tlie 
Imperial dispatch.” 

“ Alas, that most tiresome dispatch ! ” exclaimed 
Natalie ; “ but I forget,” she added, witli a curl of 
her -short upper lip, “ those who proceed on the 
errands of the Empress Catharine, would need seven- 
league boots, or the carpet of the prince in the 
fairy tale, which transported the owner at a wish.” 

Hush, cousin,” said Mariolizza, glancing timidly 
round : but no one was near save Corporal Fodatch- 
kine, who was stolidly smoking a huge pipe at a 
little distance on the terrace, when this conversation 
took place two days after Balgonie became con- 
valescent, and fully a week since the night of peril 
on which he swam the Longa. 

I cannot describe to yon, ladies, the relief that 
came to my mind on discovering that it had neither 
been lost nor stolen, but was safe — ” 

“ In Natalie’s bosom ! ” said Mariolizza, laugh- 
ing. 

‘‘ Certainly the last place, where, for her own 
sake, I would place a dispatch of the widow of 
Peter III.,” responded the other, haughtily; but 


62 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


Balgonie felt his heart heat quicker as she spoke. 
Her voice was sweet and low, and had a wonderful 
chord in it. 

The day was mild and beautiful, and truly an 
April one. The last of the ice had disappeared 
from the river; not a flake of snow was visible 
among the woods or on the distant hills ; and the 
bright sun of noon shone clearly and bi’illiantly 
from a deep-blue sky flecked by floating masses of 
white cloud, and cast across the bosom of the Louga 
the shadows of the great flr trees that spread like 
a sea of solemn cones for miles along its banks ; and 
amid that woody sea, the most stricking feature 
was a white-walled monastery wdth its “golden- 
headed church ” and all its metal cupolas glittering 
in the sunshine. 

As they promenaded on the gravelled terrace 
that lay before the Court’s residence, Balgonie 
could see the domains of Mierowitz that lay for 
miles around : the patrimonial village of the Count, 
nestling among the coppice, containing a dozen or 
so of stone houses, and double that number of quaint 
tumble-down ediflces of w^ood, and a church with 
a little gilt cupola,where his surfs said their prayers, 
and thanked God and him for permission to live 
and breathe, and to hoard their roubles in secret — 
for wealth in a serf was a sure source of misery, ex- 
tortion, and perhaps of torture, if discovered. 

In the immediate foreground were wharves, where 


Tf-HE SOLDIER OF THE CZARINA. 


63 


the wood for masts and spars from his forests were 
launched, and formed into great rafts for conveyance 
to the Gulf of Finland. The din of axes and the 
crash of falling timber, with the cheerful voice of the 
woodmen and labourers, were heard rising from the 
echoing woods, as they lopped and trimmed the 
giant pines for conveyance to the Baltic coast; for 
his forest trees were one of the chief sources of 
revenue to Count Mierowitz. 

“Your father’s mansion is indeed a noble one!” 
said Balgonie, who after surveying the landscape 
from the terrace, ran his eyes over the faqade of 
the castle, as it was named, though by no means so 
well fortified as his patrimonial tower in Strathearn, 
which dated from the days of the Sixth James. 

“ So noble that the first Count of our name who 
built it, when Ivan Basilovitch — Ivan the Terrible 
— was Czar, put out the eyes of the architect, who 
was, of course, one of his serfs,” said Natalie. 

“ For what reason ?” asked Balgonie, starting. 

“ Lest he should repeat the work for another,” 
replied Natalie ; “ but then the Count was a fierce 
soldier, who had served under Yermack in the con- 
quest of Siberia. I fear you think us very barbar- 
ous, Captain Balgonie ; but I can assure you, that 
even in the remote forests of Yakoutsk, on the banks 
of the Lena, there is more regard for human life 
and divine laws now, than existed when my father 
was a boy. He has, indeed, seen terrible things ! ” 


64 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


Balgonie did not see much of the Count, who 
was generally occupied among his people, to whom 
he was alternately a source of reverence and of ter- 
ror. 

Though infinitely more civilised than the old 
Russian noble as described by Clark, unwashed, 
unshaven, eating raw turnip and drinking quass,” 
(for according to the Doctor, in 1799, ‘‘raw turnips 
were handed about in slices in the first liouses, on a 
silver salver, with brandy as a wdiet before dinner,”) 
he was a fair average specimen of a fine old Musco- 
vite gentleman “ all of the olden time,” who had a 
cat-o’-nine-tails always at hand ; who generally un- 
bottoned his vest when the gold cup was brought, 
in which he drank his pink champagne or rare 
Hungarian wine, which he always had in equal 
plenty with his fiery vodka and bitter quass ; who 
reckoned his silver roubles by sacksf ul, and his 
Sclavonian souls by thousands ; and who, though by 
no means a bad fellow, as his imperious and outrage- 
ous class go in Russia, had still the somewhat 
czarish notion, that true nobility means “ the privi- 
lege of being treated like a human being of intelli- 
gence and feeling, and of treating others as if they 
were nothing of the kind.” 

Scandal said that in his wild youth he had fiogged 
his serfs to fight with his favorite bear, and fiogged 
them again if they maltreated or bit Bruin too 
much : Balgonie certainly saw two or three old serfs 


THE SOLDIER OF THE CZARINA. 


65 


who had lost an ear in these combats. And when 
the Count took his afternoon nap, if a cock crowed 
in tlie village, a dog barked, or a cat mewed, the 
whole community were in trouble, when the stout 
dvornick, or house-porter, was seen to issue forth 
with his cat-o’-nine-tails in search of the proprietor. 

A rich sash usually girt the waist of his oldfash- 
ioned tunic, which was of fine cloth, and trimmed 
with fur, broad or narrow according to the season ; 
a square cap of crimson velvet, tasselled with gold 
and edged with ermine as white as his beard, was 
placed diagonally on his head, when he went abroad ; 
and then he carried a long gold-headed cane, with 
the exact weight of which most of the shoulders of 
the neighborhood were perfectly familiar. On holy 
festivals the breast of his best velvet coat was al- 
ways covered by orders of the empire ; a dozen of 
servants usually hovered about him when he dined ; 
and he always went to church and confession in a 
clumsy old coach drawn by six wdiite horses, three 
abreast, in honour of the Holy Trinity. 

He was proud of being one of the old hereditary 
nobles, who are distinguished from the personal 
nobility by their right to possess serfs, and to whose 
earthly tyranny there was no limit, save the tomb. 
All the wretched serf possesses, even his wife, was 
the property of his lord. Fear of secret murder 
alone protected the latter species of property; 
hence, no wonder it is that the land is without a 


66 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


middle class. Even in the present centmy, Heber, 
in his Journal, mentions an instance of a Russian 
noble who, in his profane cruelty and lust of power, 
nailed a servant on a cross, for which he was only 
imprisoned in a monastery. 

But in the character of Count Mierowitz, there 
was something of the rough and hardy country gen- 
tleman. He it was who caught with his own hands, 
and in his own forests by the Louga, the famous 
team of brown bears which, in the marriage pro- 
cession of the late Empress Elizabeth’s jester, drew 
that jocular personage and his bride, when the new- 
ly-wedded couple proceeded to the wonderful palace 
of ice (which was built on the frozen Neva), all the 
ornaments of which were icicles, and the appurten- 
ances of which were also ice, even to the cannon 
which were fired, and did not bimst. 

“ When Peter the great came to the throne,” said 
he, one day, “ he found only two lawyers in all Rus- 
sia ; so. Captain Balgonie, he hung one as an ex- 
ample to the other. Ah, he was a truly great man, 
Peter! The English admired him, solely because 
he tried to imitate them ; but, for that very reason, 
we don’t approve of many of his innovations. We 
look from the north and south sides of the same 
hedge.” 

It is not surprising that Charlie Balgonie pre- 
ferred the society of two beautiful young girls to 
that of a testy old boyar. To enhance their natural 


THE SOLDIER OF THE CZARINA. 


67 


attractions and winning manners, they were always 
dressed in the most fashionable French mode, and 
wore the rich stuffs which came from Moscow, and 
even from China. 

They and he had many topics in common, on 
which they could converse, after old Count Miero- 
witz had dined and dozed off to sleep — such as the 
theatre erected some years before at Yaroslaff, by 
Yolk off, whose troupe were now performing the 
tragedies of Soumorokoff at St. Petersburg, where 
a government theatre had just been erected by a 
ukase; while another ennobled the manager, Yol- 
koff, who had died last year, after appearing at 
Moscow in Zelmira. Their knowledge of French 
and German opened up the best literature of 
Europe to the two cousins, which was fortunate ; 
for at the period of our narrative, Pussia had al- 
most none, save some barbarous national songs, 
fabulous ecclesiastical records, and ferocious tradi- 
tions: nor is she now much advanced in letters, 
though certainly, two months after publication, 
Charles Dickens may be read at Tobolsk — that ter- 
rible Tobolsk — where, as we have all read in our 
youth, Elizabeth wept such grateful tears on the 
bosom of her Smoloff. 

Exiled from court, and secluded amid these forests 
by the Louga, a Russian lady had few resources for 
amusement then ; so the unexpected visit of Cap- 
tain Balgonie, with whose name and courage they 


68 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


.were quite familiar, proved a most welcome and 
fortunate circumstance to those two handsome girls, 
who were merely enduring life, or simply vegetat- 
ing, in the great old mansion of Count Mieromtz. 

But there was one topic in which our soldier of 
fortune could by no means agree with Natalie 
Mierowna — her bitter and most unwise hostility to 
the strongly established power of the Empress, or, 
as she styled her, “ the woman who now occupied 
the throne of Ivan ; ” a prince whom she viewed 
exactly as the Scottish Jacobites did “ the Young 
Chevalier,” and a few old Frenchmen do at the 
present hour, “ Henry Y.,” tlie descendant of St. 
Louis. These sentiments, however, she had to utter 
in secret, or when none were by them ; and when 
he gazed into her dark and beautiful eyes, so full 
of romantic enthusiasm and of dangerous light, he 
felt thankful that one so peerless and so perilous 
was not, at all events, his enemy. 

She had accompanied the Empress on her cele- 
brated pilgrimage to the ancient cathedral of Kostov, 
by the Lake of Nero, where the last of the Prince 
of Jaroslay was murdered in cold blood by Ivan the 
Terrible. Her expedition had taken place in the 
May of the preceding year. Catharine and her 
ladies walked ten versts afoot daily, and it was at the 
conclusion of this devotional journey that the final 
quarrel had taken place concerning the mazurka 
with the Aide-de-camp Ylasfief. 


THE 80LDIEK OF THE CZARINA. 


69 


That insult shall never be forgotten here ! ” 
said she, stamping a little foot, in a prettily-em- 
broidered scarlet shoe, on the carpet of the drawing- 
room, where, fortunately for herself, she was alone 
with Balgonie : ‘‘an insult to me — to us, who have 
the blood of Ruric the Yarangion in our veins ; and 
from her — this woman of Anhalt-Zerbst ! ” 

Balgonie laughed ; for the Ruric blood is to 
Russians what Captain John Smith’s is to the Yir- 
ginians, and the Norman element to the English. 

“ Yes,” she continued, “ ’tis something novel, an 
insult to us, from this Catharine, misnamed the 
Great, who has enslaved all the Ukraine, and given 
men and women away by thousands — like herds of 
cattle, to her courtiers and her lovers ! ” 

“ Oil, be wary ; I pray you, be wary, or speak in 
French ! ” said Balgonie imploringly, while laying 
his hand impressively — rather too impressively, we 
fear — upon hers, which was so delicately smooth 
and white, and was placed very temptingly within 
his reach, as they sat near each other for the pur- 
pose of conversing in low and confidential tones. 

“ The people are mere slaves under her rule,” 
continued Natalie, lowering her voice but without 
withdrawing that coveted hand ; perhaps she forgot 
it in her energy; but the omission made poor 
Charlie Balgonie’s honest heart beat very fast in- 
deed, and his color came and went painfully wliile 
her dark and glorious eyies were bent on his : “ in 


70 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


her I behold only a usurper, who wields a knout in 
lieu of a sceptre, and who seats herself on a throne 
of human skulls ; but the time is coming when all 
these things shall be altered.” 

“ And this time, Natalie Mierowna — what do you 
mean ? ” asked Balgonie, who had been long enough 
in Russia to feel a thrill of terror at words so wild 
and dangerous. 

“ When it comes you will learn ; if the blow fails, 
woe unto those on whom it recoils ! You may es- 
cape as a stranger ; but 1 fear me, she will punish 
the whole Regiment of Smolensko — ” 

‘‘ My regiment — mine, say you ? ” 

“ Yes, yours, Hospodeen, even as Peter the 
Great did the Battalion of Strelitz, for adherence 
to his sister Sophia ; and that we know to be one 
of the most sanguinary sacrifices on record, even in 
Russia.” 

^Heaven knows that is admitting a great deal; 
but you say either too much or too little to satisfy 
my curiosity ; explain this coming peril — this mys- 
tery — to which you refer.” 

In her growing energy, Natalie’s other hand was 
now clasped above his, and truly “the situation had 
its charm.” 

“ Let us speak of it no more,” said she, recollect- 
ing herself, and with a strange smile ; “ ere long you 
shall know all ; but not now — not now. Alas ! the 
best I can wish you, Ivanovitch Balgonie, is, that 


THE SOLDIER OF THE CZARINA. 


n 


your chance visit here may not also compromise 
you with Catharine.” 

They pressed each other’s hands : it was done, 
perhaps, merely in the energy of conversation ; but, 
to he brief, Balgonie found himself now hopelessly 
and helplessly in love with Natalie Mierowna. 

Though both cousins were remarkable for their 
beauty — one blonde, the other dark — he had never 
for a moment wavered between them ; for he had 
been, from the first moment he beheld her, irresist- 
ibly attracted by the brilliant and black-eyed Nat- 
alie. Besides he knew well that Mariolizza was 
betrothed, or, as the Bussians might justly phrase 
it, assigned away, to his friend and brother-ofiicer, 
Basil Mierowitz. 


CHAPTEE YIII. 


IN LOVE. 

I T was scarcely possible that the result of his 
visit could he otherwise than it had proved ; 
for Natalie was no common-place beauty, but 
one who had subdued the hearts of many more 
men than Charlie Balgonie — men, who now at 
Moscow and St. Petersburg were counting the days 
of her exile from the Court of Catharine : and when 
Charlie thought of her in after years, the calm re- 
pose of his days of convalescence, the aspect and 
furniture of his chamber in the old Castle of Louga, 
the genial glow of the peitchka, the double window 
sashes with their bright false flowers between, the 
Byzantine picture of the Holy Yii'gin with its shin- 
ing metal halo, and the varnished panels of the 
walls, were all associated, as in a pleasant dream, 
with the dark and beautiful eyes, the round taper 
arms, the white and delicate hands on which so 
many diamonds glittered, the jetty hair that was 
twisted in massive braids (yet fell in ringlets, too) 
round the superb head, — the graceful, floating, and 
statuesque flgure of Natalie Mierowna, always so 
richly, even coquettishly attired. Natalie, so soft. 


m LOVE. 


73 


so tender, and so true, in all the relations of life 
and the amenities of society ; and yet who could be 
so keen in her hate, so fiery in her political rancor, 
when thinking of her own injuries, and the terrible 
wi-ongs of the captive Ivan, whose adherent she had 
become. 

Charlie Balgonie blessed the exile and choice of 
circumstances, all so sudden and unforeseen, which 
had cast him in her path. He loved her with all 
the passionate adoration so beautiful and winning a 
woman could inspire in a young and ardent heart ; 
nor was it long before Hatalie became aware of 
this, and was affected by the same emotion. There 
was one glance given, by which “ each read and 
understood each other’s soul.” Lovers soon find 
means to compreliend each other, and Mariolizza, 
who speedily guessed their secret, which she cer- 
tainly thought a dangerous one, found many excuses 
to leave them often together. 

The long, long dream of his youth and early 
manhood, — the waking dream of many a lonely 
hour of reverie in tlie summer woods, by the sea- 
shore, or in the still hours of military duty, in camp 
and bivouae — a fair face that would smile on him, 
— a girl to love, and worship, and trust, — one who 
would trust and love him in return, w^as embodied 
at last ; and in Hatalie he saw this hitherto imagin- 
ary sphinx of whom he had been thinking, and for 
whom he had been waiting so long. 


74 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


Her voice, her smile, her presence, seemed to fill 
the air as he breathed with a new charm, that made 
every nerve thrill, investing the most simple and 
common wants of every-day life with sudden de- 
lights and joys ; in short, and in common phrase- 
ology, the poor young man was over head and 
ears in love.” 

The declaration of his passion, and Natalie’s ac- 
ceptance of it, came about just as others have done ; 
and for three days after, — without looking the fu- 
ture confidently or inquiringly in the face, — Bal- 
gonie abandoned liimself to the delight of his new 
and successful passion, and forgot all about the 
troublesome Empress, her pressing dispatch, and 
the terrors of Lieutenant-General Waymarn. 

How could he think of such, when seated in the 
half-curtained alcove which opened off the drawing- 
room, on those calm April evenings ; when the soft 
breeze that fioated over the vast forests came laden 
with the odor of the spruce and fir boughs ? Seated, 
with Natalie — in all the glory of her youth, her 
beauty, and the flush of her first love — by his side, 
often deftly and with rapid fingers weaving up the 
coils of her heavy black hah* (which would come 
down, somehow, on these occasions) ; as she did so, 
displaying to greater advantage than ever the mag- 
nificent contour of her bust, her white shoulders, and 
taper arms, and adding even to the coquettish side 
glance of the half-veiled eye, the most splendid of 


IN LOVE. 


75 


all her natural ormaments were those great, heavy 
loose braids on which the sunlight shone. 

What was to be the future of all this ? 

On the strong friendship of Basil Mierowitz he 
could fully rely ; but then Natalie was on bad terms 
with the vindictive Empress, and he, Balgonie, was 
a soldier, and, according to the rules of the Bussian 
service, could not marry without permission from 
his colonel, who, at present, would not dare to ac- 
cord it, circumstanced as the bride would be. 

Marry? What would the proud old Kussian 
boyar say, or do, or think, when he heard that the 
penniless Scot — the mere adventurer — the soldier 
of fortune, was the accepted lover of his daughter, 
and that he had dared to lift his eyes to her other- 
wise than in the way of solemn and awful respect ? 

If his High Excellency could have but peeped 
into the aforesaid alcove on some of the occasions 
referred to ! The mere fact of being a Scot would 
not have conveyed much to the mind of the Count. 

^ If to any unlettered Englishman of the present day, 
the names of Moldavia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Servia, 
Pomerania, Grodno, Mingrelia, and so forth, give 
but a vague idea of their whereabouts or history, it 
was perhaps worse in the Count’s instance ; for so 
far as he, worthy man, was concerned, or for all he 
knew to the contrary, the Land of Cakes might have 
been in the flying island of Laputa. 

“He would be furious, no doubt,” thought Bal- 


76 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


gonie ; but ne might soothe his troubled mind by 
flogging a few serfs, shooting a few brown bears, 
and draining sundry horns of quass.” 

Charlie liad been present at more than one E.us- 
sian marriage and betrothal, and the coolness of the 
ceremony had excited his astonishment and repug- 
nance ; for, in that country, those life-enduring ar- 
rangements are concluded by a mere match-maker, 
who makes the proposal, not to the girl, but to her 
father. He remembered particularly the case of 
Lieutenant Tschekin’s espousal with the daughter 
of General Weymarn, who, having stated her dower 
to the go between, — a thousand pheasants or so, — 
the gallant subaltern was satisfied, and thus, as usual, 
the whole affair was settled without the taste or in- 
clination of the young lady being consulted or con- 
sidered. In Hussia, the papa consents ; and, accord- 
ing to some old custom, mannna pretends to object 
and weep. 

‘‘ My daughter,” said the General, “ I have given 
you away in presence of my aide-de-camp.” 

“ To one I know, father ? ” she asked. 

“Ho.” 

“To whom, then ? ” she continued, perfectly un- 
disturbed. 

“ One you shall soon know — here he comes ; and 
this is thy bridegroom, daughter : art satisfied ? ” 

The young lady, of course, declared she was sat- 
isfied. She and the Lieutenant placed their hands 


IN LOVE. 


77 


behind them, stretched out their necks, pouting 
their lips for a very frigid kiss, and the matter was 
soon concluded by a priest. 

When Balgonie thought of the delicacy and gen- 
tleness of Natalie, and remembered the marriage 
of the Lieutenant Tschekin, he shrunk alike from 
the idea of^seeing her subjected to the mummery 
of a Greek espousal and the vulgar horrors of a 
wedding feast and drinking bout h la Basse. 

At last he began to wake from his dream, to find 
the stern necessity of departing ; and, indeed, the 
snub-nosed Podatchkine, who was always hovering 
about, seemed as a perpetual reminder of the duty 
he was neglecting. The lovers were solemnly be- 
trothed in secret, — Mariolizza was their only confi- 
dant, — and at present they could but arrange to 
wait until they could mutually confide in Basil 
Mierowitz, whom Natalie, ere long, expected to see. 
To write to each other, save by special messenger, 
was deemed at present unwise ; but Balgonie would 
visit her as lie returned again to Novgorod. 

So the last evening they were to spend together 
came; and they were seated, wreathed in each 
other’s arms, with Natalie’s cheek resting on Bal- 
gonie’s shoulder, in an embowered rustic seat, not 
far from the very place where he had so boldly 
crossed the swollen river on that eventful night. 

Charlie’s heart was full of sadness and bewilder- 
ment ; he could but mutter and whisper of his love 


The secret l)ispATCitt* 


T8 

and their hopes, and again and again kiss I^atalie 
on the cheek, on the lips and snowy neck, her hands 
and arms, while her tears flowed fast ; for she had 
all the cooing tenderness of a ringdove now, and 
could only murmur from time to time : — 

“ Oh, Carl, Carl — my own Carl ! ” and so forth ; 
and, like other young ladies similarly circumstanced 
on the eve of separation, believed herself to \)e tlie 
most miserable being in the world. But, amid all 
this, she suddenly started and grew pale, on seeing 
a figure approach. 

“ See, Carl, see ! ” she exclaimed : “ that horrible 
woman must be ominous of evil at such a time. 
Why has she been permitted to approach ? ” 

Balgonie saw, at a little distance, only a Bussian 
gipsy girl, possessed evidently of considerable per- 
sonal attractions. She stood timidly, and irresolute 
whether to advance or retire ; and bowed her head 
with great humility, while crossing her fine but 
dusky hands and arms upon her breast. In old age 
the Bussian female gipsies are as remarkable for 
their extreme hideousness, as in youth they are 
famous for personal beauty; so this young girl was 
full of picturesque loveliness, and instead of being 
clothed in rags, as the wanderers of her race are 
elsewhere, her costume was brilliant in colours and 
rich in material. She had large glittering ear-rings ; 
a gaudy kerchief bound her black tresses ; and lier 
rounded cheeks being freely roughed, added to the 


IN LOVE. 


79 


wonderful lustre of her dark and dusky eyes, and to 
the generally theatrical character of her singular 
beauty and bearing. 

“ Oh ! ” resumed ITatalie, with something of a 
shudder, “ ’tis Olga Paulo wna : don’t let her speak to 
us in our parting hour, Carl, lest we be compelled 
to hear her sing, and that may perhaps bode evil. 
The dvornick, I understand, has thrice by dog and 
whip driven away this gipsy girl, who has come to 
the house again and again, ostensibly to seek alms, 
but doubtless only to steal or work mischief by her 
cunning ; for though our Russian gipsies are not al- 
lowed to pitch their tents on any land without the 
express consent of the owner, this girl’s brother, 
Nicholas Paulo vitch (as he calls himself), a half- 
blood, has permanently settled on our estate, some- 
where in the forests; though he is despised and 
loathed by the peasantry, whom, doubtless, he 
loathes and hates most cordially in turn. I do wish 
she would go away without being ordered to do so.” 

Little did Natalie know that those ill-requited 
visits of the poor gipsy girl had direct reference to 
the life and safety of him whose hand clasped hers 
so tenderly and confidingly. 

Faugh!” said Natalie, with increasing annoy- 
ance ; “ she is about to sing, — something naughty no 
doubt, — but her voice will soon summon the dvor- 
nick.” 

Many of those female wanderers in Russia can 


80 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


sing divinely ; and it is on record that even the 
great Catalani was so enchanted by the melodious 
voice of a gipsy girl at Moscow, that she took from 
her own shoulders a superb shawl, which had been 
given to her by the Empress, and placed it on those 
of the nomadic singer, ^^as a tribute from art to 
nature.” 

And Olga now began to sing with great sweet- 
ness one of those Russian songs, by which the gip- 
sies, to flatter the people, sought to foretell the 
downfall of the Crescent; and many such prophetic 
strains were current even during the war in the 
Crimea, as foreshadowing the fate of the sick 
man” at Constantinople. 

“ Years after years sliall roll, 

Ages o’er ages glide, 

Before the world’s control 

Sliall check the Crescent’s pride. 

Banished from place to place. 

Where’er the ocean’s roar. 

The mighty gipsy race, 

Shall visit every shore. 

“ But when the hundredth year 
Shall three times doubled be. 

Then shall the end appear 
Of all their slavery. 

Then shall the warlike ^lowers 
From distant climes return, 

Egypt again be ours. 

While the Turkish domes shall burn I 


“ Again the Christian’s cross 
Shall over stamboul wave, 


IN LOVE. 81 

And ruin, weeds, and moss, 

Mark the last Sooltan’s grave I 
' Again shall Christmas hells 

Ring where the Muezzins cry 
When across the Dardanelles 
The Moslem hordes shall fly I 

“ So Egypt shall he freed. 

Her tribes return once more, 

Their flocks and herds to feed 
Where their fathers dwelt of yore : 

When all our warlike powers 
From distant climes return. 

Then Egypt shall he ours. 

While the Turkish turrets hum 1 ” 

The last line ended in a shriek, with which a ciy 
from Natalie mingled ; for the cruel dvornick had 
been stealing through the thicket unperceived, and 
now bestowed a heavy lash across the tender slionld- 
ers of the cowering and shrinking girl ; but ere he 
could repeat it, Balgonie sprang forvV^ard, arrested 
the descending whip, and then placing in the hand 
of tlie singer a few Livonian groschen, bade her 
hasten away, on which she departed, witli tears of 
pain and gratitude, after pressing his fingers to her 
lips; and, in her terror and confusion, leaving her 
task undone — her warning of coming treachery un- 
told. 

Oh, Carl ! ’’ said Natalie, laying her liead again 
on Balgonie’s breast, ‘^dearest Carl, I am so glad 
she has gone without anathematizing us — or, or 
weaving some mischievous spell ; for, smile as you 


82 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


may, I can’t help fearing those people ! 1 am a true 
Russian, and dread the evil eye ! ” 

Richer hy a lock of dark and silky hair and a 
diamond ring (both the objects of many a secret 
kiss), but leaving his heart behind him, in one swift 
hour after this little episode, Balgonie had departed 
to meet, and, for greater security, to travel in con- 
sort with, a caravan of a hundred and fifty boors, 
who were conveying sugar from Moscow to St. 
Petersburg. 

He was guided again by the sly Podatchkine, who 
had resolved to take especial good care that the 
said caravan should be avoided. 

“ God be with you, Hospodeen — God be with 
you — adieu,” said the old Count, lifting his square 
velvet cap coiu’teously, as he bade farewell to his 
guest at the porte-cochere. 

Balgonie ^o respectfully kissed the hands of Nat- 
alie and Mariolizza, that none could have detected 
a difference in his manner to either ; and certainly 
none could have suspected that the tears of tlie 
former were yet wet upon his cheek — ^lier kisses 
lingering on his lip, that he seemed to leave his soul 
upon her, hand, and that the wrung hearts of both 
were swollen with concealed emotion. 

“ IJich ! ” thought Corporal Michail Podatchkine 
as he rode after the officer into the deep forest Pd 
as soon think of kissing the foot as the hand ; who 
knows among wliat carrion either may have been 


IN LOVE. 


83 


stuck? By St. Nicholas, I would rather eat a 
sheep’s tail or a rump steak from an old troop mare 
than kiss either.” 

Some hours after Balgonie’s departure, and when 
Natalie in the solitude of her own room was aban- 
doned to tears and unavailing regrets, a trusted mes- 
senger from her brother arrived with a brief note, 
written so enigmatically that none save herself could 
have understood or deciphered it ; but the spirit of 
it was briefly this : — 

‘‘ All is arranged for freeing the prisoner of 
S. (chlusselburg) by a stratagem. A dispatch that 
may counteract, if not baffle our plans, and fatally 
compromise us all, has been sent by old Weymarn 
to St. Petersburg. I know not who the bearer is ; 
but be assured of this, he will never reach it alive. 
We have set Podatchkine on his track, and he, 
worthy Livonion, for two hundred roubles, would 
skin his own father alive.” 

After reading this pleasant epistle, little wonder 
is it that Natalie was found by Mariolizza, as the 
twilight deepened, half senseless upon her bed, cold, 
in tears, and utterly miserable. 


CHAPTEE IX. 


DELUDED. 

LOYEE has occasionally been likened to a 
•AmA* fool, as being a man possessed by one idea — 
his mistress. This was certainly somewhat of poor 
Charlie Balgonie’s state of mind. He saw only the 
dark eyes, the half drooped lids, and the farewell 
glance of Natalie ; so full of hidden and tender 
meaning ; and while thinking of her and of her 
last words and promises, their mutual hopes of the 
future, based almost entirely on Basil, he fell an 
easy pray to the plans and schemes of the wily Cor- 
poral Podatchkine, who saw only his anticipated 
two hundred silver roubles ; and who, knowing the 
country as well as if it had been every acre, rood, 
and verst this own property, led him on and on he 
knew not where ; but, at all events, two hours after 
they should have met the caravan, they found them- 
selves, to all appearance, lost in a dense forest of 
dark pine trees. 

Failing the caravan, having now proceeded, as he 
believed, some twenty miles or so, Balgonie liad 
thoughts of passing the night at the house of a 

friend of Count Mierowitz, a duornin^ of whom he 
84 


DELUDED. 


85 


had been told by Mariolizza, who laughingly as- 
sured him, that this personage was a fine Russian 
gentleman of the old school, who beat his wife reg- 
ularly every Thursday and Saturday with a whip of 
thongs,” and was seldom sober. 

Those duornins were country gentlemen, who 
held their lands by knights’ service, and were bound 
to attend the Czar on horseback in time of war. 
Formerly it was sufficient to send a man well armed 
and mounted ; but Peter the Great first compelled 
them or their sons to serve in person, if they could 
not pay for a substitute. 

In short, though he knew it not, Balgonie had 
been for the last two hours riding merely in a wide 
circle, and, by the careful guidance of Podatchkine, 
was now not many miles from the hut of the gipsy 
woodman, Nicholas Paulovitch ; and, consequently, 
he was much nearer the Castle of Louga than he 
had the least idea of. 

On this night there was a glorious Aurora in the 
north; and full of his love, his own tender thoughts, 
and inspired by the beauty of the scene, it seemed, 
to the somewhat provoked Podatchkine, that the 
dreaming Captain was quite disposed to pass the 
nignt where he was. 

When the dense wood of stupendous pines opened 
into the long vistas, the whole northern quarter of 
the sky could be seen, illuminated from the horizon 
to the zenith. Gloriously bright as the most bril- 


86 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


liant phosphorus, masses of iii'e arose in the form 
of columns that waved, towered, and shot into the 
air, with streaks of fainter light between. Anon 
they all blended and merged into’ each other with 
renewed grandeur, aslant, or radiating from a centre, 
like the sticks of a mighty fan. All that portion 
of the heavens seemed a mass of shining gold, 
rubies, and sapphires, with a wonderous light 
streaming over them, broadening, brightening, and 
deepening, then fading away, to flash forth again in 
greater beauty and glory, while, as if to enhance 
the magnificence of this illumination, many falling 
stars shot across it, leaving in their train sparkles 
of light, more brilliant even than the glory that 
blazed beyond. In black outline between, and in 
the immediate foreground, towered the dark and 
solemn pines, in solitude and silence. 

Not a sound was heard but the occasional snort 
of their horses, or the cry of a distant wolf. 

Balgonie was surmising whether Natalie would 
be surveying the beautiful natural illumination 
from her window, or from the terrace : he forgot 
that it was nothing new to her. Certainly it proved 
of little interest to Michail Podatchkine, wdio under 
his thick beard, growled at the officer for loitering. 

The Scottish islesmen call the streamers of the 
Aurora “ the merry dancers ; ” but the Siberians 
name them the raging host : ” and Balgonie was 
reflecting what a relief their brilliance must prove 


DELUDED. 


87 


to the lonely hunters, who at that very time were 
pursuing the white bear and the blue fox, far be- 
yond the Lena, and along the. shores of the Icy Sea, 
when his attendant disturbed his reverie. 

“ Well, Michail,” said he, in reply to some re- 
mark in which the Corporal, who saw nothing won- 
derful in the matter, urged that they should pro- 
ceed, we have missed the sugar caravan, and can- 
not discover the residence of the duornin I spoke 
of, so I am rather provoked with you.” 

‘‘ Oh, Excellency, who can withstand God or the 
Great Novgorod ? ” whined the fellow, using an old 
Russian proverb. 

Jean Paul Richter says, “ the more weakness, the 
more lying ; force goes straight, but any cannon-ball 
with cavities in it goes crooked.” Some such 
thought as this occurred to Balgonie, as he checked 
his horse, and half turning round, with a stern ex- 
pression in his face, which the light in the north 
made sufficiently plain,, he said : — 

“ Rascal ! I fear you are deceiving me again ! ” 
Hustled up on his saddle, rather than in it with 
his knees on his holsters and his lance slung behind 
him, Podatchkine made many signs of tlie cross, and 
called on St. Sergius and all the other moshtschi, or 
saints of Russia, to bear witness that he was as in- 
nocent as a young bear of any such foul idea ; but 
only begged that his Excellency would proceed, and 
assured him that the track they were on must as- 


88 


THE SECRET mSEATCH. 


suredly bring them, ere long, to some woodman’s 
dwelling. 

At this time, such is the slavish influence of 
superstition, that Podatchkine, for mere fellowship, 
kept close to the very man against wliom he had 
formed the most fiendish schemes ; for stories of the 
Wood Fairies, — of the Leeclde^ or Forest-demon, 
whose fangs tore the benighted asunder, — of the 
Domovoi^ or mischievous Pussian Brownie, — of the 
Vodianoi, or smiling Eiver spirit, who lured travel- 
lers to a watery doom, — of wolves and bears in 
ravening herds, came fast upon his memory ; for the 
forest was growing denser, and the darkness deep- 
ened painfully after the Aurora faded away, and a 
few solitary stars alone glinted through the open- 
ings between the broad, flat, pendant branches of 
the intertwisted pines. 

The silence of the night was now broken only by 
the whistling croak of the valdchnep, or great wood- 
cock, as he darted from amid the black gloom of a 
pine tree, or the lighter shadow of the graceful, but, 

. as yet, leafless birch ; and the craven and clamorous 
anxiety that had been giving real pangs, and even 
qualms of conscience, to the superstitious Podatch- 
kine began to subside, when the wood opened a little, 
a red light appeared, and they approached the cot- 
tage of Nicholas Paulovitch, the half-bred. 

It was, as already stated, built of logs, squared by 
the hatchet outside and inside, and whitened by 


DELUDED. 


89 


chalk : before it yawned a deep draw-well, with a 
bucket, handle, and wdnch. 

“ ’Tis the cottage of a man I know. Here, Ex- 
cellency, we can pass the night,” said Podatchkine, 
leaping from his horse and dutifully taking Bal- 
gonie’s bridle, as if to anticipate any proposition of 
proceeding further. “ There is a shed behind where 
I shall stable our horses : Nicholas, I know, will 
make us welcome to his lodge.” 

In a few minutes more, Balgonie found himself 
seated in the cottage, the aspect of which struck 
him as being peculiarly comfortless, dingy, and 
squalid, as he viewed it by the light of a loutchin^ 
or species of pine torch, which stood in a rusty iron 
holder on the rough deal table, whereon lay a pack 
of frayed and dog-eared cards. 

On the walls were some rude images, stuck over 
with crumbs of black bread, which attracted the 
flies in summer and the dirt at all times. In a 
place of honor was a holy effigy, with some train oil 
flaring before it in a tin sconce, as a species of votive 
lamp ; for the proprietor affected religion quite as 
much as Mr. Gamaliel Balgonie did in a more civil- 
ised part of the world. 

The furniture consisted of a few plain stools, and 
some very dirty bearskins spread on the floor in the 
corners, as beds ; and on the table was a pitcher of 
foaming and seething quass, with wooden bowls to 
drink it by. 


90 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


Balgonie took in all these details at a glance. 

How great would have been his surprise, if he had 
knowTi that after riding so many miles, he was only 
a short distance from lier^ from Natalie, who was 
now weeping bitterly and sleeplessly on the bosom 
of her cousin for him, and for the fate she dreaded, 
and yet had not the power to avert, or from which 
to save him. 

In addition to Podatchkine and the host, Nicholas 
Paulovitch, who stood respectfully at a little distance 
from Balgonie, and was appraising the exact value 
of his costume, arms, and ornaments, even to Nata- 
lie’s diamond ring, there was present another ill- 
visaged fellow, with a powerful figure, square shoul- 
ders, and giant beard, like every Russian of the 
lower order ; eyes that were small and piercing, like 
those of a mouse ; a long, fierce nose and jagged 
teeth, hair shorn off close above the eyebrows and 
brushed all down straight from the crown of his 
head, which in form resembled a cone or a pine- 
apple. 

This Barbarian, who was dressed chiefiy in a 
shoubah of sheepskin, and had a small, but sharp, 
hatchet and dagger in his girdle, was a Stepniak, 
from a district where nothing like a town was ever 
seen or known, but whose aid and strength Paulo- 
vitch thought might be useful and necessary in the 
work he and Podatchkine had cut out for themselves 
in the night. 


CHAPTEK X. 


THE CORPORAL IN HIS OWN TRAP. 

lU ALGOXIE was rather weary after his long and 
5*^ desultory ride by rough and unfrequented 
roads, chiefly devious forest paths ; he felt thirsty, 
and looked at the pitcher of quass. 

Will his Excellency drink ? ” asked Nicholas 
Paulovitch, in his hoarse and husky voice. 

Now as quass is simply a species of sour beer, 
made of rye and oatmeal, colored by a red berry 
and is generally the beverage by which the Russians 
wash down their coarse bread and salt, Balgonie de- 
clined : the Stepniak proposed to add thereto a dash 
of train oil ; but the suggestion made the young 
officer shudder. 

“ I have fortunately one bottle of Rhine wine,” 
said the woodman, with a rapid and furtive glance 
at his comrades ; ‘‘ his Excellency will doubtless 
honor us by taking it with his supper, at least with 
such fare as the forest produces, a stewed rabbit or 
so.” 

I thank you, good fellow. Where is this cot- 
tage situated ? ” 

Situated,” replied Nicholas, with a quick and 

91 


92 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


uneasy glance at the Corporal, fearing there might 
he some discrepancy in their information. 

“ Yes, in what part of the country ? ’’ said Po- 
datchkine ; for we naturally wish to know.” 

“Near Yeli^.” 

“ Then I am somewhere about forty versts from 
the Louga ? ” 

“ Yes, Excellency, precisely,” replied the rascal. 

“Hence, if my horse is fresh, I may reach 
Schlusselburg to-morrow ? ” 

“ Scarcely, as it lies fully a hundred versts be- 
yond Yelie,” said Nicholas, 

“ Is the distance so great ? ” exclaimed Balgonie, 
little knowing that it was even more, and all un- 
suspicious of how these wretches were deluding 
him.* 

“ But, Excellency, we may prove more able 
guides than Michail Podatchkine,” said the gipsy 
woodman ; “ for we — that is the Siepniak and I — 
must proceed to St. Petersburg!! to-morrow, on a 
little piece of business we shall have to perform 
together.” 

“ Poor devils ! ” thought Podatchkine, “ if you 
take his body to St. Peterburgh, you will both be 


*Tlie cottage of those assassins is said to have been situated 
ten versts, or about eight miles distant from Louga on the road 
to Velie. Vide dispatch from General Weymarn to the Em- 
press, dated 8th August, “ concerning Carl Ivanovitch Balgonie, 
a Scottish Captain in the Regiment of Smolensko .” — Utrecht 
Gazette. 


THE OOKPOKAL IN HIS OWN JRAP. 


93 


accused of murder and knouted, as sure as my 
name is Michail; so I shall save my fifty silver 
roubles.” 

Even at the present day in E-ussia, few will ven- 
ture to receive or meddle with a dead body, or at- 
tempt to succour a dying or a drowning person, in 
dread of the dangerous accusations and extortions of 
the police. 

A sound, as of footsteps, and of something like a 
drinking vessel falling on the floor of an upper 
apartment, made the woodman start up with an oath 
of astonishment and alarm. He hurriedly applied 
a ladder to the trap which gave admission to this 
place, and ascended into it ; but returned almost im- 
mediately to say, “ there was no one there.” The 
evident surprise and alarm of the three men at this 
trivial occurrence, is said to have been the first cause 
of exciting Balgonie’s suspicion. 

He glanced at the Stepniak, who sat silently ob- 
servant in a corner, drinking his quass, with his feet 
resting against the rude peitchka, or stone stove, 
which was built into the log wall of the cottage, and 
when surveying his vast bulk and colossal stature, 
together with his singularly ferocious aspect, the re- 
flection occurred to him, that he should have placed 
his pistols in his girdle instead of leaving them in 
the holsters of the saddle. 

He was the reverse of timid ; he was “ brave even 
to rashnessj and had faced death many times ” (to 


94 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


quote General Weymarn) since his career of wander- 
ing began ; but the idea certainly did flash upon his 
mind, that his situation in that lonely forest had its 
perils, and that two men more repulsive in aspect 
and in bearing than the gipsy and Stepniak, he had 
never seen, even in Kussia. 

Was it some mysterious and intuitive sense of 
danger drawing near that made such thoughts pass 
through the steady mind of Balgonie ? 

He and Podatchkine were both armed, and even 
were these men outlaws, they would scarcely, he be- 
lieved, dare to assault an officer on military duty ; 
besides, the very name of Schlusselburgh, whither 
he was proceeding, carried a wholesome terror with 
it; so dismissing his casual suspicions, Charlie un- 
buckled his sword, and seated himself at the table, 
on which a cold supper of stewed rabbits and coarse 
rye bread was laid for the four who were present. . 

A platter was placed for a fifth person whom 
Nicholas remarked to Podatchkine in a growling 
tone was still abroad in the forest, or had not re- 
turned from some place which was named in a 
whisper. 

With an affectation of extreme respect and cour- 
tesy, none of the three worthies would seat them- 
selves at the table, until Balgonie specially invited 
and urged them in succession to do so. 

The bottle of Ehine wine was produced from the 
apartment above and opened. The length of the 


THE CORPORAL IN HIS OWN TRAP. 


05 


cork and the dust on the bottle (wherever it came 
from originally) argued well of the contents; and 
two horns, one of which had a handsome silver rim, 
were placed for the Captain and Corporal. 

The former was rather surprised to find such a 
drinking vessel at this silver mounted cup in a 
place so squalid, and he was about to lift and ex- 
amine it, when Nicholas Faulovitch, with almost 
nervous haste, filled it, and also that of the Corpo- 
ral, to the brim. 

To the surprise of Balgonie, the latter exhibited 
some undisguised alarm on seeing wine placed be- 
fore him ; it was an attention under all the circum- 
stances he neither wished nor expected ; and so he 
declined to drink of it, saying that lie was “ a true 
Buss, and would adhere to tne quass.” 

“ Nay, fear not, friend Michail,” said the wood- 
man, ‘‘ ’tis the best of Bhine wine. The cup with 
the silver mounting is of course for his Excellency 
the Hospocleen,” he added with a quiet but grim 
significance, which tlie wily Cossack quite uider- 
stood, so he drained the' wine horn without further 
objection. 

Soon after having supped, and imbibed his full 
share of the wine bottle, Balgonie expressed a de- 
sire for repose, as he wished to depart liy day- 
break; but he had other reasons for retiring so 
early. He did not much relish the society of the 
gipsy, the Stepniak, and the Corporal of Cossacks ; 


96 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


and he wished to indulge in reverie, to commune 
with himself, and let the current of his thoughts 
run undisturbed on Natalie and their adieux. 

‘‘ This way, Excellency,” said Nicholas, with 
alacrity, lifting the pine torch in its iron loutchin, 

■ and ushering him up the stair, a mere common lad- 
der, and through the trap-door into the little apart- 
ment above, where his couch, composed merely of 
skins of the bear and slieep awaited him, and where 
he could see the dark forest and the occasional stars 
through a small window that gave light and air to 
the place, which was so limited in size, that it some- 
what resembled a little cabin in a ship. 

Left in this miserable den to his own reflections 
and to darkness — when Nicholas descended with 
the pine torch, carefully closed the trap-door and 
secured it on the lower side by a wooden bolt, 
moreover, softly removing the ladder — Charlie 
Balgonie placed his sword conveniently at hand, 
and cast himself upon the pile of skins that were to 
^ form his bed, and thought he had often fared worse 
in the bivouacs of Silesia and Bavaria. 

“ So — ^he is safe,” said Nicholas Paulovitch, look- 
ing upward with a grin of savage satisfaction at 
the closed trap, as he replaced the loutchin on the 
table, and then closely scrutinised the Corporal, 
whose eyes had already become red and inflamed. 

“ Hush ! ” said Podatchkine, “ take care.” 

« Why ? ” asked Nicholas, in a hoarse whisper. 


THE CORPORAL IN HIS OWN TRAP. 


97 


“ Because all may not be yet as you wish it, and 
in Bussia sometimes the tongue flays the shoulders 
and cuts off the head.” 

“ True,” said the hitherto taciturn Stepniak, who 
was carefully feeling the keen edge of his hatchet ; 
“ as the Tartars have it, ‘ when you have spoken the 
word, it rules over yon ; while it is yet unspoken, 
you rule over it.’ But it seems to me Michail Po- 
datchkine, that you have taken a great deal of 
trouble, and wasted much time in the matter of this 
dispatch. As you passed througli the forest to- 
gether, why the devil did you not give him a good 
tzchick ” — (which we can only render “ prod ”) — 
“ in the back with your lance % ” 

‘‘ Because, if a wound is found on him, folks 
might say he had been murdered ; and he must bear 
not a scar.” 

“And neither shall you, friend Podatchkine,” 
said Paulovitch with a cruel grin. 

“ Come — don’t make unpleasant jests,” growled 
the Corporal, with a yarn and a shudder ; “ wounds 
have not been fashionable since Orloff and Berni- 
koff supped wdth Peter III.” 

“ You grow wary as you grow older Corporal.” 

“ I have no desire to travel wdth the next cara- 
van to Siberia, with one side of my head and face 
shaved, and an iron rosary, some five pounds weight, 
my wrists.” 

“ Fear not — you will never see Siberia.” 


98 


THE SECtEET DISPATCH. 


“ Then you have made all sure about this Ivan- 
ovitch Balgonie ? ” said Podatchkine, whose utter- 
ance was becoming somewhat inarticulate. 

“ Ay, sure enough ; the cups were ” 

“ The cups ! ” 

“ Tlie cup, I mean, was drugged with those black 
berries which grow in the forest hereabout ; the 
same stuff used by tine ladies to whiten their 
hands.” 

“ But why the cup and not the wine ? ” 

“ For this reason : I might have been constrained 
to drink with him ; and I had no desire to fall, like 
some one else, into a trap of my own baiting.” 

Podatchkine, on whom the powerful soporitic 
with wliich his cup had been drugged — tlie sleepy 
nightshade — had been rapidly taking effect, and 
whose small cunning eyes had been opening and 
shutting alternately, while a numbness stole with a 
weariness over all his faculties, seemed suddenly to 
grasp at the terrible meaning of the speaker. He 
gave a start — he essayed to rouse himself and shout, 
but in doing so, toppled off his stool, and sank on 
the clay floor in a profound slumber. 

“ At last ! ” said the half-breed, administering a 
kick to the prostrate flgure ; at last he has gone 
to sleep ; now to make sure that he shall never 
waken more. Ah ! the Asiatic ! he was just getting 
suspicious at the end.” 

There are two kopecs in his pocket/’ said the 


TSE OOREORAt liT filS OWN TEAR. 


09 


Stepniak, after investigating the garments of the 
snorting Podatchkine, who was now breathing 
heavily through his red snub nose, which, between 
his scrubby beard and his shock of hair, was almost 
the only feature of his face that was visible. 

“ Leave the kopecs where you found them ! ” said 
Nicholas, with a gipsy oath. 

‘‘Wherefore? ” asked the Stepniak with surpiise. 

“It ^vill seem all the more honest in thee, my 
good Stepniak, when you take the body — bodies, I 
should say — to the nearest military post. You have 
but to say you found them dead in the forest.” 

“ And the wet clothing ? ” 

“ Dew or rain — what a head you have ! ” 

“ True — true; ah ! what a man you are, Nicholas 
Faulovitch, so full of bright thoughts ! That idea 
would never have occurred to me.” 

“ Nor the other either. Quick, now ; we have not 
a moment to lose ! ” 

They extinguished the pine torch, and tying the 
Corporal’s hands securely with a cord, carried him 
forth to the draw-well before the cottage. Then 
they substituted that worthy warrior’s heels for the 
bucket which was usually appended to the rope, and 
permitting the winch to revolve softly and gently, 
lowered him down, snorting and gasping in his un- 
natural slumber, head foremost, into the deep dark 
water below ! 

The Stepniak turned the iron handle of the winch 


100 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


or windlass, while the gipsy guided the rope with 
its heavy burden. He was deliberately lowered 
down until only his heels remained above water, as 
the two wretches could see by the starlight when 
stooping and peering into the darkness below. 

The snorting had ceased now ! 

The dying Corporal was heard to struggle with 
his hands, as if lie sought to free them from the 
cords ; a few bubbles filled with air rose to the sur- 
face and burst. This continued for a minute, dur- 
ing which all was silent everywhere, save the half- 
suppressed breathing of the two assassins, and the 
dreary sound of the night wind, as it shook the 
dark branches of the giant pines that towered in 
solemn gloom around them. 

Nicholas Paulo vi tell listened intently, and kept 
his eyes fixed on the cottage where their other vic- 
tim lay, as lie doubted not, sunk in what was in- 
tended to be his last sleep. 

Anon, all became still — deathly still — in the 
depths of the dark well; the rope ceased to vibrate, 
and the bubliles came no more. 

“ Let us leave him here for a few minutes, and 
now for the Captain and his dispatch! By the 
time that we return, the Corporal will be as stiff as 
if he stood for sale in the frozen market on the fete 
of St. Nicholas I ” said the gipsy, with one of his 
diabolical grins; while the Stepniak, with a smile of 
satisfaction that showed all his huge yellow teeth. 


THE CORPORAL IN HIS OWN TRAP. 


101 


smoothed down to his eyebrows the thick coarse 
black hair that grew from the apex of liis conical 
capnt. 

They now re-entered the cottage, and again 
lighted the torch in its iron loutchin. All remain- 
ed just as they had left, it; the quass pitcher, the 
wooden howls, the two cups, and the empty wine 
bottle were on the table, and the platters, with the 
debris of their rustic supper ; but the superstitious 
gipsy felt a species of shudder come over him, for 
when the torch flared up in the night wind and cast 
strange shadows on the dingy and discloured walls 
of the log-hut, it seemed to his diseased imagina- 
tion, for a moment, as if the outline of the drowned 
Corporal still occupied the stool on which he had 
been seated. 

Come,” said he huskily, the dispatch ! — and 
then for the other ! ” 

They listened intently, and placed the ladder 
against the trap-door. All was still — not even the 
breathing of Balgonie was heard. Ascending first, 
with a knife in his teeth, in case of unexpected re- 
sistance, the gipsy knocked thrice on the trap with- 
out receiving any response. He then withdrew the 
wooden*bolt, pushed it up, and introducing his head 
and shoulders, held aloft the pine torch, and turned 
towards the bed of skins. 

It was unoccupied ; and in a moment he saw that 
the bare and desolate chamber was without a tenant! 


102 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


“ Malediction I ” he shouted ; ‘‘ he has escaped us 
— hut how ? Search — search ! He cannot be far 
off, after the dose I have given him ; search — and 
we must use our hatchets now 1 ” 


CHAPTER XL 


OLGA, THE GIPSY. 

fIJjALGOXIE had scarcely thrown himself at 
length on the soft, but not very odorous, 
pile of skins which formed his couch, when a face 
appeared at the little window, which was pulled 
open, and a voice called to him in a low and earnest 
whisper : 

‘‘ Hospodeen — Carl Ivanovitch I Hospodeen, at- 
tend to me ; but oh, be silent, as you value your 
life ! ” 

He started up, softly approached the window, 
and saw, by the dim starlight, a fair female face 
with very dark eyes, white and regular teeth, and 
long, glittering ear-rings. 

“ I have seen this face before,” thought he ; “ but 
when, and where ? ” 

Balgonie, in truth, was too much of a lover to 
have more than one female face ever before his 
eyes — that of Natalie Mierowna. 

“ I am Olga, the gipsy,” said the girl humbly. 

“ Olga ! Olga ! whom I saw at the house of Count 
Mierowitz this evening ? ” ' 

‘‘ The same, Hospodeen ! ” (Balgonie expressed 
108 


104 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


an exclamation of astonishment to find her, as he 
thought, so far from that place.) “ You gave me 
a silver kopec once upon a time, at Krejko, when 
passing through that town with Michail Podatch- 
kine ; and, tliis evening you saved me from the whip 
of the dvornick, when, for the third time I had ven- 
tured near the Count’s mansion, in a vain search for 
you, or the Hospoza Mierowna.” 

“ In search of us — and for what purpose, girl ? ” 
“ To warn you, that for nearly a month past, a 
plot has been formed to deprive you of a valuable 
paper, and even of your life.” 

My life — when ? ” 

“ On the fii'st opportunity.” 

By whom — and wliere, girl — where ? ” 

“ Here in this solitary hut — even now your as- 
sassins are in consultation — listen.” 

He placed his ear to the trap-door, and heard the 
murmur of hoarse whispers below. 

“ Hush,” said Podatchkine, as already related, 
“ take care ! ” Then followed the question of the 
subtle and ferocious Stepniak, as to why he had not 
given Balgonie a “ prod ” with his lance in the 
forest ; and the whole conversation in all its horrible 
details, up to the moment when the wretched Cor- 
poral with death and terror mingling in his soul, 
fell from his seat in a stupor. 

“ Father in lieaven ! ” exclaimed Balgonie, full of 
despair and horror, as he mechanically felt for his 


OLGA, THE GIPSY. 


105 


fatal dispatch, to ascertain that it was yet safe, I 
have drunk of this drugged stuff, and am also lost ! ” 

‘‘Nay,” said the gipsy, hurriedly, “nay ” 

“ I drank the accursed wine from a cup ” 

“ True ; but' not from the cup which was intended 
for you.” 

“ How ? — speak ! — speak ! ” 

“ The wine and the cups too were all stolen by 
Podatchkine, with many other things, at different 
times, from the household of Count Mierowitz. 
This night you were duly expected here, and thus a 
plan was laid to destroy both you and your treacher- 
ous guide. Two cups were fully and deeply drugged 
by my brother Nicholas : one was richly mounted 
with silver ; and knowing well that it was to be set 
before you, I abstracted it barely an hour ago, sub- 
stituting another of the same kind, and now I have 
it here. Oh, Hospodeen, a narrow escape you have 
had ! ” 

Balgonie began to breathe more freely ; but, as- 
sured that never had he run so narrow a risk of 
death, he felt, though enraged and furious, his blood 
run cold, when contemplating the fate intended for 
him. Peeping through a chink of the hatch or 
trap-door, he saw that the ladder of access had been 
removed, and that the door of the squalid cottage 
was open now, for the loutchin flared more than 
ever in the night wind. It was then extinguished; 
but still he could sec and hear them dragging forth 


106 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


the passive form of Corporal Podatchkine, whom 
he supposed to be dead. 

Personally, Balgonie felt that he was no match 
for either of the powerful giants below — men 
whose bodily strength was quite equal to their 
ferocity, and whose daggers and hatchets might 
make mince-meat of him. Moreover, they had now 
deprived Podatchkine of his sabre and loaded pistols, 
and were thus more completely armed. Charlie had 
his hand on his sword — a handsome Turkish sabre ; 
but relinquishing the ideas either of attack or de- 
fence, wliile the glow of rage rose in his breast and 
cheek, he thought only of immediate flight. 

“ If you would save your life and the dispatch of 
the Empress, follow me this instant, and get your 
horse before they return : you have not a moment 
to lose.” 

It was the gipsy girl who spoke again, in her low 
earnest whisper, and with perfect decision. 

“ Then I owe my escape — my safety ” 

“ To my gratitude. Pass through the window 
and descend by the wall.” 

“Women,” says a certain philosopher, “are not 
at all inferior to men in coolness and courage, and 
perhaps much less in resolution than is commonly 
imagined ; the reason they appear so is, because 
women affect to be more afraid than they really are, 
and men pretend to be less.” 

Balgonie found that the courageous girl to whose 


OLGA, THE GIPSY, 


lOT 


guidance he now trusted himself, had been enabled 
to reach the window by standing on tlie roof of the 
outhouse, or shed, in which Podatchkine had sta- 
bled their horses. The whole edifice being built of 
squared logs, was not very high ; and it afforded easy 
means of ascent and descent, by the interstices con- 
sequent to its rude construction by the hatchet. 
He soon leaped to the ground, and softly assisted 
her to descend. 

“ Here is your horse : you see, PTospodeen, that 
your kindness to the poor gipsy girl was not thrown 
away.” 

Balgonie looked rapidly to his bit and girth, 
adjusted himself in his saddle, hooked up the hilt 
of his sabre, and shortened hii rein, almost unaware 
of the black tragedy being so cocly and deliberately 
acted on the other side of the cottage, 

“ Ten versts farther from this will bring you to 
the monastery of the Troitza, which you will know 
by its three domes. You have but to ride straight 
^ westward by the forest path ; G od keep you, and 
may you and the beautiful Hospoza be happy in 
your loves ! ” 

Tell me, gipsy girl ” 

‘‘Ah, I can foretell nothing, save that in love 
mere merit is of little matter.” 

“ What is of most importance — beauty ? ” 

“No.” 

“ What then ? ” 


108 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


“ Success, Hospodeen.” 

He almost laughed, as he slipped into her hand 
two xervonitz (the largest coins he had,) and in a 
moment more was galloping over the soft grass of 
the forest path she had indicated. 

“ By Jove,” thought he, as he spurred on, “ I shall 
not he sorry when this infernal dispatch is safe in 
the hands of old Bernikoff ; and to think of that 
wretch of a Podatchkine! I always expected the 
fellow to he a rogue, but not of so deep a dye ! ” 

The unfortunate Corporal, now, as he deserved, 
hanging head foremost downward in the draw-well, 
stark and stiff and cold, had been to all appearance 
a good Kussian, Balgonie reflected : he neither con- 
fessed, fasted, nor did penance (too much bother all 
that would have been for the Corporal of Cossacks) ; 
but he kept Lent regularly to all appearance ; made 
a sign of the cross fussily before and after every 
meal; always went to church when in camp or 
quarters ; and never omitted his prayers and genu- 
flexions at night, if in haunted places or wLen pass- 
ing a 'wayside cross, especially if any one was by. 
All this was no doubt studiously hypocritical ; and 
Charlie remembered that his worthy Uncle Gam 
kept Fast-days and ‘‘Sabbaths” with stern and 
gloomy rigour ; that he said a long and sonorous 
prayer before meals — a longer prayer after them ; 
that he went thrice daily to kirk at the ordained 
periods, and had nightly a noisy expounding and 


OLGA, THE GIPSY. 


109 


out-pouring of the spirit that would have put the 
great John of Geneva himself to the blush. 

‘‘ Ah,” thought poor Charlie, as he trotted on his 
lonely way through the darkened forest, decidedly 
there are Fodatchkines in Scotland as well as else- 
where and in Kussia.” 

The light was beginning to dawn, for it was the 
morning of one of the first days of May, so long had 
he been detained by illness — shall we say by love ? 
— at the castle by the Louga, that Muscovite Eden, 
as now it seemed to him. The birds were chirping 
merrily in the woods ; and in some places he saw the 
brown rocks shaded by a species of graceful silver 
birch and dark rowan tree, similar to those that 
grew in his native strath at home. 

By midsummer he knew that the birchen glades 
he traversed would be in full foliage, and that the 
rowan berries would hang in ripe red clusters among 
the thick green leaves ; and that there, too, would 
be gray lichens on the granite cliffs, and in their 
clefts soft emerald moss, the wild strawberries and 
the drooping bells of the purple foxglove, just as 
he had seen them where the Earn “ gurgling kissed 
her pebbled shore ” as it flowed towards the Tay. 

They seemed like old friends in that strange place, 
and with a sigh of gratitude for his escape from a 
perilous and deadly snare was nringled one of hope 
— a wish — a bootless wish, that one day he might 
sit by the banks of the lovely Earn with Natalie by 


no 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


his side, amid all the security his native land af- 
forded, and under the wliite blooming hawthorns 
that cast tlieir sweet fragrance to the soft winds of 
the Perthshire valley. 

Beloved hJatalie — so fair and delicate, so dark 
haired and so bright-eyed ! Her diamond ring, and 
still more lier lock of soft and silky hair, brought 
all the charm and sense of her presence vividly be- 
fore him. He counted the brief hours since they 
had parted, and sighed to think how many hours 
and days and weeks must inevitably elapse before 
they met again. 

In memory and imagination, he conned over and 
over again each tender speech and glance, each 
mute caress and passionate kiss, with every circum- 
stance and minutise of their occurrence and bestow- 
al ; and what lover has not done so since time be- 
gan, and apples grew, and roses bloomed in Eden ! 
Even liis recent narrow escape, and tlie gipsy’s grati- 
tude were forgotten in tlie ardor of his thoughts. 

And he siglied again, when thinking how wild 
and insane were the dreams in which he was indulg- 
ing, as he touched his horse with the spurs, on seeing 
the three shining domes of the Troitza, or monas- 
tery of the Holy Trinity, rise before him amid the 
green woodlands. 


CHAPTEK XII. 


ST. PETERSBUKG. 

IgM FTEP traversing a green valley some five or 
or six miles in length, bordered on each side 
by forests of fir trees, dark, solemn and acutely 
conical, where the sunlight could scarcely ever pene- 
trate to the thick rank grass and herbage that grew 
below, and where a merry gurgling brook rushed 
noisely along by the side of the narrow horseway, 
Charlie Balgonie drew his bridle at tlie gates of the 
Troitza monastery, when its white walls, its three 
great cupolas, shaped each like a gigantic onion in- 
verted, covered with plates of burnished copper, and 
all painted and bestarred, were shining gaily in the 
morning sun. 

There he was made welcome by the monks — 
quaint-looking men, in long black caftans, with high 
black caps, fashioned like our modern hats, but 
witliout brims, and having black veils fioating be- 
hind over their long, straight hair. lie deposited 
some money with the treasurer, declined the invita- 
tion of the sacristan to see the uncorrupted bcdy of 
some saint with an unpronounceable name, reposing 
in its shrine like a silver bedstead, and its head be- 
lli 


112 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


girt by a diadem with pearls as large as pistol bul- 
lets ; for the saint had been a martyr, who, in the 
days of Ivan Basilovitch, the Barters had rewarded 
for his attempts to convert them by knocking out 
his brains ; and now he was a miserable mummified 
relic of humanity, before which, for many ages, 
thousands of devotees had knelt and wept and smote 
their breasts in paroxysms of prayer. Charlie 
waived the invitation; and after having a good 
breakfast in the refectory, and there telling his story 
to the monks, he was somewhat bewildered when 
informed by them, that after all his (certainly cir- 
cuitous) journey with Podatchkine on the preceding 
evening and night, and after his riding since he had 
left the cottage of the gipsy, he was still barely 
twenty miles from the Louga ! 

Was a spell cast upon him? was his horse be- 
witched, that lie was to continue travelling thus, and 
yet never make progress? It almost seemed so; 
but one of the monks, a more shrewd man than his 
brothers, explained the whole affair as being conse- 
quent to the cunning of Podatchkine, and his scheme 
for destroying the dispatch-bearer. 

A large party of pilgrims on horse and foot were 
returning to St. Petersburg that afternoon. With 
them Balgonie travelled for the remainder of his 
journey; and, after traversing a wild and desert 
tract of country, on the evening of the next day lie 
had the pleasure of beholding, in the distance before 


ST. PETERSBURG. 


113 


him, that new but vast and splendid capital, — 

“Proud city! Sovereign mother tliou 
Of all Sclavonian cities now/’ — 

covering the once wild waste whereon, before the 
time of Peter the Great, the father of his country, 
a few wretched fishermen were wont to contend 
with the wolves and bears for a spot to erect their 
huts — where, as Count Segur says, winter reigned 
for eight months of the year, rye was an article of 
garden culture, and a bee-hive a curiosity. 

Its bulbous-shaped Byzantine domes, and tall 
needle-like spires, and all its countless roofs, that 
rose beyond each other in ridgy succession like the 
waves of the sea, and are generally like the sea in 
colour, being of a brilliant green or an ashy hue, 
were now all tinted redly by the rays of the setting 
sun, which cast the shadows of its many bridges on 
the waters of the Neva and of the canals that glided 
silently and darkly beneath them. 

As the sun sank beyond the Gulf of Finland, and 
the shadows deepened on every plated dome and 
^ granite rampart, the great gilt crosses of our Lady 
of Kazan (a fane which was ten years in building) 
and of many other noble churches glittered, or 
rather seemed to burn like stars, amid the deep blue 
of the cloudless sky beyond. 

Balgonie’s satisfaction, on finding himself so near 
the end of his journey, was somewhat clouded by a 
trivial circumstance. 


114 


THE SECRET DISPATCH, 


After entering the city bj a palisaded barrier, 
where stood a guard of the Kegiment of Yalikolutz, 
he checked his horse’s pace, while the caravan of 
pilgrims, whom he now wished to quit, traversed a 
long street of small wooden houses that lay beyond. 
Here, close by the margin of the Neva, lay a man 
with his loose caftan wet and dripping, and a piece 
of sack or old canvas spread over his face. On his 
breast lay his fur cap, as if to receive alms for his 
burial; for none doubted that he was a poor 
drowned fellow just fished up from the Neva, and 
that money was required of the religious and 
charitable alike for his obsequies and masses for 
the repose of his soul. So all the pilgrims from 
the Troitza threw something into the fur cap, 
where denuscas, kopecs, even roubles and Polish 
ducats, jingled fast together, while the passers 
muttered prayers and made signs cf the cross. 

All the caravan had passed ; so the clatter of 
Balgonie’s charger, steel-scabbard, and accoutre- 
ments, seemed to create a different effect on the 
attentive ear of the seemingly drowned man; for 
the knave, who had only been acting, started up, 
and, with his spoil, fled like a hare down one of the 
little alleys that opened off the wooden street. He 
vanished in the twilight, yet not so quickly but 
that Balgonie was able to recognise in his face and 
form, the bulky and muscular half-bred, the gipsy, 
Nicholas Paulo vitch. 


ST. PETERSBURG. 


115 


What had brought him to St. Petersburg ? Was 
he still dogging the luckless dispatch-bearer, or had 
he only fled thither that, among its thousands, he 
might elude the punishment with which Count 
Micro witz would be sure to visit him, if the murder 
of the Corporal was discovered ? 

This episode made Balgonie feel uncomfortable, 
and suspicious that other and hidden dangers yet 
menaced him, as he rode steadily but watchfully 
through the densely crow^ded, but monotonously 
regular streets of houses, which are stuccoed white- 
washed, and decorated with different colours, roofed 
with wood and iron, painted in most instances 
green, and nearly all pillared and piazzaed — each 
long vista, with its oil lamps, being terminated by 
domes and spires ; and ere long he saw the lights 
shining in the lofty window’s of that magnificent 
crescent, which, for a time, was the palace of 
Catharine’s most cherished favourite, “the faii’- 
faced Lanskoi,” as Byron has it — 

“ A lover who had cost her many a tear, 

And yet but made a middling Grenadier.” 

And now the melodious bells were ringing for 
vespers in the towers of our Lady of Kazan — a 
Greek cruciform fane, which was founded as a rival 
to St. Peter’s at Home, and named after the Tartar 
kingdom of Kazan. It is the greatest church in 
the city, and one of high sanctity. 

Along the northern margin of the Neva, a river 


116 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


broad as the Thames at London Bridge, but (un- 
like the Thames) deep, blue, and transparent as 
crystal, lined with solid granite quays, and bordered 
by many stately palatial edifices, Balgonie pursued 
his way ; but the stars were shining at midnight on 
the vast sheet of water called the Lake of Ladoga, 
before he, weary and worn with fatigue, dismounted 
beneath the formidable gates of the castellated 
prison of Schlusselburg, which had been strength- 
ened and fortified anew by General Count Todle- 
ben, whose arrest and quarrel with the Empress 
had made so much noise tliree years before the 
time our story opens. 


CHAPTEK XIII. 


WHAT THE SECRET DISPATCH CONTAINED. 

W EXTY-FOUE. miles eastward of the city, 
the small town and fortress of Schlusselburg 
stand, at a point where the Neva issues from the 
Lake of Ladoga, and on the left hank of the river. 
The little town had then somewhere about three 
thousand inhabitants, who chiefly lived by the manu- 
facture of cotton and porcelain. 

On an island, where the river joins the lake and 
moats it round, is built the fort, which is about four 
hundred yards square : its walls are of stone, mas- 
sive, and fifty feet in height, terminating in battle- 
ments and turrets of antique form. 

The passage to this island is by a long draw-bridge. 

The guard which kept this formidable state prison, 
where many a hopeless sigh was wafted through the 
rusty bars of its prison grilles across the waters of 
Ladoga, was composed entirely of a body of dis- 
mounted Cossacks, selected for the purpose, as the 
task of keeping or secluding the dethroned Em- 
peror Ivan was one of no small responsibility and 
importance ; so these men were all Cossacks of a 
high class, and were rather richly dressed. 

117 


11 S THE SECRET DISPATCH. ' 

Their short blue jackets were elaborately em- 
broidered with yellow lace, and a multitude of gilt 
buttons, but were hooked across tlie chest ; their 
trowsers of scarlet cloth were loose, long, and 
gathered into their boots, w^hich were of brown 
Russian leather, and reached to six inches above 
the ankle. Their busbies of black shining fur had 
bright scarlet bags, tall white feathers, a cockade, 
and tasselled cord. They were all clean and 
soldier-like men, well moustached, and sternly resO' 
lute in bearing ; and all were armed with musket- 
oons, short sabres, and brass pistols. 

A guard of these men received Balgonie at the 
gate and drawbridge with a profound military sa- 
lute ; and a picturesque aspect they presented, as 
their arms flashed in the murky light of the great 
oil lantern that swung in the dark, weird, and deep- 
mouthed archway, where a massive port-cullis 
showed its iron teeth, all red and rusted by the 
mists of the Neva and the stormy blasts that swept 
across the Lake of Ladoga. 

The great masses of the fortress, ghostly and 
shrouded, with faint red lights gleaming out here 
and there ; the enormous strength of the gates, their 
planking, bolts, and bars ; the thickness of the 
walls ; the number of embrasures and loop-holes for 
cannon and musketry, all converging to one point, 
the approach or river entrance ; the number of sen- 
tinels, and, more than all, the vast strength of the 


WHAT THi; SECRET DISPATCH CONTAINED. 119 


portcullis and double gates, together with the diffi- 
culties he experienced in procuring admission, 
though in uniform, and though a staff officer bear- 
ing a dispatch of the Empress, all served to impress 
unpleasantly on the mind of Charlie Balgonie a 
state of extreme .watchfulness, of suspicion, and 
mistrust ; and also a sense of vast responsibility 
of the charge confided by Catharine to Colonel 
Bernikoff. 

That gallant officer and estimable personage had 
retired long since, after a deep drinking bout, and 
would be — as Lieutenant Tschekin (the son-in-law 
of General Weymarn), who was third in command 
of the fortress, informed Balgonie — quite invisible 
till breakfast time to-morrow, when the dispatch 
would be delivered to him : and a sigh of real an- 
noyance escaped Charlie, when he found that this 
odious paper was tt) be yet some eight hours or 
more in his secret pocket. 

He repaired to the officers’ guard-room at the 
.barrier gate, and there, wrapped in his cloak, with- 
out undressing (as he hoped next day to exchange 
the atmosphere of Scfilusselburg for that of some 
hotel in the Yasili-Ostrov),lay down to sleep, and if 
possible to dream of Natalie ; but he had undergone 
too much toil for such gentle phantasms, so he slept 
like a dormouse, till the sun was high in heaven, 
unawakened even by the deep boom of the morning 
gun, a 36-pounder, as it pealed across the Lake of 


120 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 




Ladogo ; but ultimately lie was roused by Tschekin 
and Captain Ylasfief, a very handsome young man, 
but a cruel and heartless roud^ whom ultimately he 
detested. These, after shaking him heartily, an- 
nounced that Colonel Bernikoff awaited him at 
breakfast, and was not in a mood to brook much 
delay. 

His hasty toilette was soon complete, and he was 
speedily ushered into a plain, almost naked white- 
washed apartment arched with stone. Through its 
grated windows the morning sun shone cheerily, and 
the blue waters of the lake could be seen with the 
white sails of many a tiny coasting vessel. 

Here, at a table of plain Memel timber, destitute 
of cloth, but on which massive silver vessels with 
rudely formed wooden bowls and platters were 
oddly intermingled, was seated the Governor, who, 
like the czars and boyars of old, still took quass for 
breakfast with roasted beef or bear’s ham, bread 
with caviare, greens with vinegar, salted plums and 
other abominations. But Balgonie saw that coffee 
' and even tea, with ham, eggs, and kippered salmon, 
were prepared, with other condiments, for those 
who, like himself, had nothing of the Tartar in their 
blood. 

“ Hail to you — I wish you health,” said Berni- 
koff, courteously enough, in the old Bussian fashion, 
and presenting his hand to Charlie, who took it, 
shuddering as he remembered the fate of Peter 


WHAT THE SECRET DISPATCH CONTAINED. 121 

III. ; “ welcome to Schlusselburg, Captain Ivaiio- 
vitch Balgonie.” 

Bernikoff, who wore a dark-green undress uniform 
faced with scarlet, was a man well up in years ; he 
had fierce and shining black eyes that made soldier 
and serf alike quail beneath their gaze ; yet they 
were small, cunning, and twinkling eyes, the lashes 
of which were lialf closed — the eyes of one who 
could act the cruel tjn-ant on one hand, and the 
cringing slave on the other. He had a massive, 
square, and brutal jaw, thin wicked lips, a nose as 
round as a grape-shot, close short' grizzled hair, and 
long snaky mustachioes. 

He was of Tartar blood, and came of those- 
“ warlike and merciless tribes who studied nothing 
but the use of arms ; who passed their lives on 
horseback ; who even lived on their horses in this 
sense, that their chief food was horseflesh and the 
milk of mares ; who, at the same time, could go for 
days without food ; and who, when they took a city 
by storm, put all the inhabitants to the sword ex- 
cept the working men.” 

“ Seat yourself, Captain, and proceed to break- 
fast, while I read your dispatch,” said the Governor. 
‘‘ Holy Sergius ! it is from Catharine Christianow- 
na herself ! Tlie Czarina is great, but Heaven is 
higher ! ” he added, placing the paper on his fore- 
head, as he bowed over it ; and then taking an 
enormous pinch of Beresovski snuff, a most pungent 


TSE SECRET DISRATCEt. 


m 

compound, from a gold box said to have been found 
in the pocket of Peter III., he proceeded to peruse 
that document which had proved of such trouble to 
the beai;er. 

The eyes of Balgonie, Tschekin, and Ylasfief, who 
alone were present, were fixed inquiringly upon 
him, and they could see that the contents disturbed 
him greatly ; he grew pale and fiushed by turns ; 
his brows contracted to a terrible frown; a red 
spark of devilish light glittered in his eyes, and his 
lips were compressed. 

“ Ah, the Asiatics ! the accursed Asiatics ! ” he 
muttered. This is a most opprobrious epithet in 
Russia, and excited some surprise in his hearers. 

He carefully folded the dispatch, and turning 
sternly to Charlie, who was keeping his eyes on him 
and drinking his coffee the while, he said : — 

“ Ivanovitch Balgonie, there is a feather in the 
seal — the usual sign of haste among i^s here in 
Russia ; yet you have not troubled yourself much 
with speed, for this dispatch is dated at Novgorod 
more than a month back ! ’’ 

“Permit me to explain. Excellency,” said Bal- 
gonie eagerly, and anxiously too. 

“ I shall be glad if you can explain it,” replied 
Bernikoff, with increasing sternness. “ I have known 
a general, a leader in ten battles, degraded, knouted, 
and sent to hunt the ermine with a cannon ball at 
his heels for a smaller dereliction of duty than this.” 


WHAT THE SECRET DISPATCH CONTAINED. 

Balgonie’s heart beat very fast while he related 
his story — of liis being misled by a traitor twice; 
of the passage of the Louga at such terrible hazard; 
of his subsequent illness ; and the episode at that 
log hut. 

“ That you were in the guidance of a traitor, 
I knew before your arrival ; and I am extremely 
glad that he fell into his own snare,” replied Berni- 
koff, a little more calmly ; but this matter is ex- 
tremely awkward for you; and becomes more com- 
plicated every hour.” 

After glancing again at the dispatch, and bending 
his keen rat-like eyes on Balgonie, he asked : 

“ Were Basil Mierowitz or UsakofP, the grandson 
of Mazeppa, at the Castle of Louga any time during 
your sojourn there ? ” 

“ 1 ^ 0 , Excellency, neither of them were.” 

“ Spies say differently — but you can swear it ? ” 

On my honour do I swear it ! But why ? ” 

“ I have had bad news from the head-quarters of 
your regiment, and from Lieutenant-General Wey- 
marn, since you left IS’ovgorod.” 

“ And these tidings. Excellency ? ” 

“ Are to the effect that your friends, the two 
subalterns, have both deserted, with several soldiers, 
all of whom ai*e natives of the Ukraine.” 

Deserted ! ” 

And are nowhere to be found, though pursued 
by a whole sotnia of Cossacks.” 


I 


124 : 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


“ Deserted ! ” reiterated Balgonie with real con- 
cern. 

‘‘Yes — the cui'sed Asiatics ! ” replied Bernikoif, 
expectorating with great vehemence, and thoroughly 
believing that each time he did so he cast out a 
devil. 

For some moments intense anxiety and alarm be- 
wildered Balgonie, and lie felt himself grow pale at 
a time when six searching eyes were bent with a 
doubtful expression upon him. He remembered 
the hostility, the threatening and mysterious words 
of Hatalie, and grew almost sick with apprehension 
of he knew not what, as he muttered inaudibly — 

“ Basil deserted — and his cousin too ! The whole 
family will be inculpated and degraded. Oh, Nata- 
lie, my hapless love ! Did General Weymarn state 
this in Ms dispatch ? ” he asked aloud. 

“ He did, and at its end referred to you.” 

“ To me. Excellency ? ” 

“Yes; here is the document, and it concludes 
thus: ‘as I and the Begiment of Smolensko will 
shortly march into St. Petersburg, Captain Carl 
Ivanovitch Balgonie need not return to Novgorod ; 
but, until then, shall attach himself to your staff, and 
remain in Schlusselburg, where, ere long, you may 
require all the good service he can render you. — 
Weymarn.’” 

Great were the mortification and disgust of Bal- 
gonie on learning that he was to remain for an in- 


WHAT THE SECRET DISPATCH CONTAINED. 125 


definite period in a place so revolting and uncom- 
fortable, and with no other society than that of three 
military jailers, — cruel, hard-hearted, and avaricious 
Muscovites of the worst kind ; and with these orders 
died his hopes of revisiting, as he intended, Louga, 
on his return, and of seeing Natalie again. 

Under ban as all the household of Mierowitz 
would be now, should he ever see her more ? Every 
way fate and the tide of events seemed to be against 
him and her, already in the very dawn of their love. 

“ And now, gentlemen,” said the Governor, low- 
ering his voice, “ the Empress’s dispatch contains 
only two lines, thus : ‘ A scheme is formed to free 
Prince Ivan. Let him not fall alive into the hands 
of these who come to seek for him ! ’ Nor shall he ! ” 
exclaimed Bernikoff with ferocious enthusiasm, as 
he dashed a cup of vodka among his quass, and 
drained the goblet, after shouting, “ The health of 
Her Imperial Majesty Catharine Christianowna — 
Iiurrah ! ” 

‘‘ Hurrah, hurrah ! ” added Ylasfief and the Lieu- 
tenant. 

Balgonie also, as in duty bound, essayed to “ Iiur- 
rah,” but the sound died away on his lips. 


CHAPTER XIY. 


Charlie’s first day in Schlusselburg. 

F ull of anxious thoughts, he passed more than 
half of tlie succeeding day on the ramparts 
of the castled-prison, alone, avoiding Colonel Berni- 
koff, Captain Ylasfief, and their subaltern, Tschekin, 
none of whom were consonant to his taste, for all 
were deep gamblers and heavy drinkers. 

His mind was full of care for Hatalie and all her 
family. Some desperate and revengeful plot, of 
which the desertion of her brother and of his cousin 
Usakoff was but the beginning, the means to an end, 
was certainly hatching — a plot that might too surely 
end in bloodshed, in the savage punishment and the 
ruin of all. 

He sorrowed keenly for his two friends Basil Mi- 
cro witz and Apollo Usakoff, for both were polished 
and educated gentlemen, men of a class and style 
more common in some corps of the Russian army 
now than in those days. And there was poor 
Mariolizza, too — so brightly beautiful, so happy, 
and so merry ! Her love, her liopes^ and schemes, • 
would all be crushed and blighted, as well as his 
own. 


Charlie's first day in schluesselbug. 12l 

Balgonie was not without fears for liimself, and 
of being compromised in the affair ; or perhaps, 
lured into subtle state intrigues and deep plots, in 
the failure or success of which he could have no in- 
terest politically or personally, save in his love for 
Natalie — a love that had changed the whole current 
of his ideas and opened up a new realm of thought 
and incentive to action. 

Already he was beginning to revolt at the Rus- 
sian service, and yet he had been happy in the Regi- 
ment of Smolensko, and had found in the land of 
his adoption, like every Scottish adventurer that has 
trod the Russian soil, honours scarcely to be won at 
home. 

How long was he to be on the staff of this fero- 
cious Commandant, and in this horrrible prison, 
where many an innocent victim was pining hope- 
lessly in chains and misery? “The mutual dis- 
trust in which people live in Russia,” says the 
Abbe Chappe D’Auteroche in his scarce travels 
about this time, “and the total silence of the 
nation upon evi^i’ything which may have the least 
relation either to the government or the sovereign, 
arise chiefly from the privilege every Russian has, 
without distinction, of crying out in public, slowo 
dielo ; that is say, ‘I declare you are guilty of 
high ti\ ason, both in words and actions.’ All the 
bystanders are then obliged to assist in arresting 
the person so accused ; a father, his son, and the 


128 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


son his father, while nature suifers in silence. The 
accuser and accused are at once conveyed to prison, 
and afterwards to St. Petersburg, where they are 
tried by the Secret Court of Chancery.” 

Thanks to this pleasant state of society, the 
chambers and chains of Schlusselburg were seldom 
unoccupied. 

Ylasfief was hollow-hearted, avaricious, and sen- 
sual ; Tschekin, the Lieutenant, a slimy, cruel, reck- 
less, and ignorant Muscovite ; but old Bernikoff was 
really a character whom Balgonie equally dreaded 
and despised. 

His subtlety and oppression had been the means 
of reducing, at different times, some thirty officers 
to the ranks, with permission to serve and work 
then- way up again ; and many more were now 
cursing him and their fate, at L’kutsk and remoter 
Siberia, for their inability to purchase his mercy 
or good-will. When commanding at Cronstadt, he 
had been detected once in the act of transmitting 
whole sledge loads of government shot, shell, lead, 
and ropes, across the frozen gulf for sale in Sweden ; 
and also in buying at a cheap rate base denuscas to 
pay the troops ; but so trusted was the old rascal 
by the Empress, that he always escaped the degre- 
dation, the hanging or shooting, which, on those 
discoveries, were so freely meted out to his sub- 
alterns. 

On the estate of Bernikoff a serf once amassed 


Charlie’s first day in schlusselburc. 129 

ten thousand roubles, and offered them for the 
freedom of his daughter, who was about to be 
married. 

“ Let me see the gud ! ” was the reply. 

As a serf can possess nothing, the father trem- 
bled in his soul at this demand ; as his daughter, un- 
fortunately for herself, was beautiful. 

“ Holy Sergius ! ” exclaimed Bernikoff, “ what 
business has a serf with ten thousand roubles ; the 
girl and the money are alike mine ! ” 

And so he literally and lawfully seized them both. 
Though a savage soldier, like every old Musco- 
vite, he was the slave of mechanical devotion. Ho 
statue or pictm*e of the Holy Yirgin, of St. Sergius, 
or St. Alexander Hewski, was ever passed by him 
without a profound reverence and a sign of the 
cross. To such eflSgies he would address himself 
before he knelt even to the Empress : and before 
them he had been known to kneel and kiss the 
ground five minutes before or after he had knouted 
a miserable boor (whose pockets were empty), or 
nearly slain a soldier by making him run the gaunt- 
let, for merely having the seams of his gloves 
sewn outward instead of in ; for wearing his hat on 
the left side of his head instead of the right ; or 
for some other offence equally heinous. 

And it was on the staff of this distinguished 
officer (temporarily, however) that Charlie now, to 
his great disgust, found himself. 


130 


THE SECRET DISRATCfl. 


On three sides, far around this island prison, 
stretched the waters of Ladoga — the largest lake in 
Europe, being one hundred and thirty miles long, 
by nearly ninety broad ; full of rocky isles and 
dangerous quicksands, over which, from its flat 
shores, sweep frequent and perilous storms. 

From the somewhat dreary view of this small in- 
land sea, whose northern and eastern coast could 
not be discerned, he turned to survey the fortress, 
with all its strength of gloomy walL, grated win- 
dows, and frowning cannon, till suddenly his eye 
was arrested by a very remarkable face, which 
was observing him from the sombre depth of a 
strongly barred and arched window of the great 
tower. 

It was a pale face, but singularly handsome — 
grave, and even sad in expression — a young man’s 
face with the slightest indication of a moustache, 
but for which, in its paleness and extreme delicacy 
of feature and tint, it might have passed for that of 
a twin brother of Natalie Mierowna ! 

Suddenly it was detected by a Cossack sentinel, 
who shouted shrilly, and slap ed the but-end of 
his loaded musketoon : on this, the face instantly 
disappeared. 

This was he concerning whom Balgonie had 
brought that terrible dispatch — Ivan, tlie deposed 
Emperor— the prisoner of Schlusselburg ! 

“ Twenty-three years ! ” thought Balgonie with a 


Charlie’s first day in Schlusselburg. 131 

shudder ; twentj-tliree years in that tower — since 
his very babyhood — oh, it is terrible ! ” 

Other ears had heard the shout of the sentinel ; 
for now a man, wdio in a boat had been fishing near 
the fortress, suddenly shipped a pair of sculls and 
pulled away towards the towm with an air of alarm 
that seemed equalled only by his dexterity. This 
fisher had been hovering about the fortress all day. 

Can he be the gipsy — tlie half-breed ? ” thought 
Charlie : ah ! the dispatch is out of my hands 

now.” 

Lieutenant Tschekin now approached with an in- 
vitation from Bernikoff to join him at dinner, add- 
ing, “ Bemember that with the Colonel, eating is in- 
deed a science ; and temperance he views as mere 
want of ’spirit.” 

As they proceeded together through various arch- 
ways and gates, the shrieks and entreaties of a man 
apparently in mortal agony rang through the echo- 
ing prisons with a horrible cadence, that chilled the 
free blood in Balgonie’s veins. 

A court through which they had to pass was 
crowded by soldiers, formed in hollow square, and 
Balgonie was compelled to linger and look on with 
Tschekin, who seemed rather to enjoy the spectacle. 

“ Ilah,” said he, “ the punishment is nearly ended 
— let us wait and see the Ijatogg ! ” 

It was a soldier being knouted, which is simply 
the Kussian word for “ whipped.” 


132 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


Stripped to the loins, he was strapped to an erect 
board, formed like an inverted cone, and ha\dng 
three notches at the upper end, one to receive his 
chin, and the other two his wrists, while the tortur- 
er wielded a knout, the handle of which is usually 
eighteen inches long with a thong of thirty-six 
inches. This is always boiled in milk, by which 
process it swells and the edges become sharp, hard, 
and more destructive. 

The whipper w^as skilful: he laid on his lashes 
from the neck to the loins, so as to deal them at in- 
tervals of one inch artistically apart, leaving a stripe 
of flesh between each; but these regulated and 
omitted stripes, after receiving a fresh knout, he 
proceeded to take off in succession, with wonderful 
and terrible precision, till the man’s entire back was 
a mass of blood, and he hung, fainting and well- 
nigh speechless, by the wrists. 

“ Oh, Excellency,” said he, in an imploring voice, 
‘‘ remember that my brother, Alexis Jagouski, aid- 
ed you in escaping from the battle of Zorndorfl ! ” 

This was most true, but the story was a terrible 
one. At Zorndorfl, where the Eussians were de- 
feated with such slaughter and driven towards the 
frontiers of Poland, the horse of Bernikofl was shot 
under him, and he was in danger of being cut 
down by the Prussian Hussars. In this sore ex- 
tremity a Cossack named Alexis Jagouski took his 
leader behind him on his crupper ; but that person- 


Charlie’s first day in Schlusselburg. 133 

age, finding that the double weight impeded the 
horse’s speed, and that the Hussars were close be- 
hind, shortened his sabre in his hand, and plunging 
the blade into the body of his preserver, fiung the 
corpse from the saddle, and escaped alone. 

At this reminiscence Bernikoff only scowled 
more deeply ; and now the lacerated back of the 
sufferer was strewed with course gunpowder, to 
which a match was applied. This is technically 
known as the hatogg^ and the agony it produced is 
indescribable. 

The culprit was now cast loose, but was still able, 
according to the slavish usage of the country, to 
crawl on his hands and knees towards Bernikoff, 
and he gasped out : — 

“ Hospodeen — Excellency, I thank you humbly 
for this most merciful punishment.” 

‘‘ Begone, dog of an Asiatic ! ” replied the Gover- 
nor, kicking him in the face ; “ when next you seek 
to fill your pipe, this will teach you to keep your 
filthy fingers out of my tobacco pouch.” 

These were the defenders of their country, the 
Holy Bussia, arhong whom a wayward fate had 
cast the Scottish palatine : the blood of the latter 
boiled within him ; but he knew too well that to 
expostulate would be but to excite suspicion, and to 
court degradation and the musket. Something, 
however, in the expression of his face did not es- 
cape Bernikoff’s keen and angry eyes. 


134 : 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


“ Ivanovitcli Balgonie, a superior can never act 
unjustly to liis inferior,” said he sternly ; and these 
words terribly embodied the genuine spirit of the 
true Bussian Tchinnov7iiJc^ or noble class. “ I am 
in the service of the State,” he added ; “ and the 
State is the Czarina ! ” 

Yet this upright Governor, who knouted the poor 
Cossack for pilfering a pipeful of tobacco, had al- 
ways a garrison double its actual strength on paper, 
the pay and rations of the men of straw forming a 
pleasant addition to his many secret perquisites, 
while his soldiers starved and frequently begged 
food from the very prisoners they guarded. 

It was neither hospitality nor love of soicety 
which had procured the honor of an invitation for 
Balgonie ; but Bernikolf shrewdly suspecting that 
he might have some loose cash, resolved to possess 
himself thereof at cards ; so barely was a dinner of 
slice (which is identically Scotch broth,) croquettes, 
V7i\\\ puree of beet-root, beef in the Hussar style, 
with salad of baked beet-root and biscuits, dismissed, 
than champange-cup, and vodka (or corn-brandy) 
punch became the order of the evening ; and Ber- 
nikoff, who was a great gourmand, with his face 
flushed and his uniform open, after signing the 
cross and bowing thrice to a picture of St. Sergius, 
sat down to cards with Vlasfief and Tschekin, who 
were quite as sharp as himself, and with poor simple ^ 
hearted Charlie Balgonie, who dreaded to decline, 


Charlie’s first day in Schlusselburg. 135 

circumstanced as lie was on all hands ; and who was 
glad when allowed to quit the table with the loss, 
he never could understand how, of twenty xervon- 
itz, or pieces worth nine shillings sterling each. 

“ Now, Ylasfief — ’tis you and I ; rouge-et-noir ! ” 
exclaimed Bernikoff, draining a goblet of vodka 
punch at a draught. 

“ I am too weary too play, most excellent Colonel ; 
pray excuse me,” urged the Captain, who had lost 
considerable to his senior also. 

“ You, then, Tschekin ? ” said Bernikoff savagely. 

“ I hav’n’t a kopac to spare. Excellency ! ” 

“ Well — I saw a pretty housemaid at your man-, 
sion in the town yesterday — the daughter of a serf 
apparently.” 

Feodorowna ? ” 

“ Yery likely — with red hair and brown eyes.” 

“ Ah ! the same ; she came with Madame Tschekin 
from the household of her father. General Wey- 
marn.” 

“ By all the devils, she is very like old Weymarn ! ” 
She is the daughter of my old nurse, Colonel,” 
said Tschekin gravely, with an air of annoyance. 

“ I don’t care whose daughter she is ! ” 

‘‘ Well ? ” 

“ I’ll put a hundred silver roubles on her.” 

Done ! I put her on the ace.” 

“ The ace hath lost ! ” exclaimed Bernikoff, with 
a shout of laughter. “ Holy Sergius I the girl is 


136 


TH:^ secret DiSPAtCfl. 


mine. To-morrow,” he added, “ I’ll send a corporal 
and a file of men for her, with a covered kabitka. 
See that all her things are packed and ready, friend 
Tschekin, or write to your wife about it, and say 
you have lost her at cards.” 

The devil ! — Excellency — this can’t be.” 

“ Why ? I won her fairly.” 

‘‘But the girl is about to be married to her 
cousin.” 

“ Was, you mean; the cards have changed her 
destiny, like that of the serfs whom Yalsfief drank 
away in champagne last night.” 

So passed Charlie’s first day at Schlusselburg. 


CHAPTER XV^. 


THE IMPERIAL PRISONER. 

F OE.TUNATELY for Balgonie, there was a 
chaplain, or priest, of the Kussian Greek 
Church, attached to the fortress ; and his society, at 
times, tended to alleviate what he endured from hav- 
ing to associate with such a human bear as Colonel 
Bernikoff, — an annoyance from which he would only 
be relieved by the longed-for return of General Wey- 
marn and the Eegiment of Smolensko to St. Peters- 
burg. 

The ceremonies of religion retain in Bussia all 
their pristine influence, and afford the miserable and 
unlettered serf a short season of relaxation from 
labour and severity during festivals, when he may 
enjoy his can of fiery vodka and revel in intoxica- 
tion. Unlike many of the Russian clergy, who 
adopt the cowl merely as the means of evading 
slavery in civil life, or slavery added to peril in the 
army, and also as a chance of attaining to power 
and nobility. Father Chrysostom, the Chaplain of 
Schlusselburg, was a humane, gentle, and learned 
old priest, whom the Commandant had been de- 
praved enough to strike with his clenched hand on 


138 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


more than one occasion ; but prior to doing so, he 
had always contrived, oddly and snperstitiously 
enough, to have the chief badge of the father’s 
sacred office, his — baretta — abstracted and hidden. 

Through the good offices of the chaplain, with 
the permission of the Governor, which was yielded 
very unwillingly, Balgonie (whose cui’iosity and 
commiseration were greatly excited) was presented 
one evening to the deposed Emperor Ivan, and the 
particulars and incidents of that interview made a 
deep and sad impression upon him. 

The entrance door of the central tower was small, 
arched, and of great strength. Above it were 
carved the Kussian arms, first adopted by Ivan 
Basilovitch in the sixteenth centmy : a spread-eagle, 
having on its breast an escutcheon bearing St. 
Michael and a dragon, with three crowns in chief 
for Muscovy and the two Tartar kingdoms of Kazan 
and Astracan. 

On passing through a little paved court, grated 
over with iron, where the royal reduse was permit- 
ted to breathe the external air, while a sentinel trod 
to and fro above his head, another door-way, se- 
cured by a portcullis grooved into the wall, gave 
access to the narrow stair which led to his apart- 
ments. ■ These were two in number : their windows 
and doors were all grated with iron ; and sentinels, 
with loaded arms, watched every avenue by day and 
night. 


THE IMPERIAL PRISONER, 


139 


His sitting-room was plainty, even neatly fur- 
nished : its chief ornaments being a pretty Madonna 
and some. gaudy pictures of Muscovite saints; and 
it had one window, which opened towards the vast 
expanse of the lake of Ladoga. 

Pale, handsome, and resigned, gentle in eye and 
manner, the poor young prince had grown to man- 
hood in total ignorance of the outer world and of all 
he had lost. He knew only the four walls of ’ the 
prison, the changing hues of the waves and clouds, 
the wild swans and the waters of Ladoga. 

As related in our fifth chapter, the Prisoner of 
Schlusselburg was the eldest son of the Princess of 
Mecklenburg, Elizabeth-Catharine, niece of the 
Empress Anne. His father Avas Anthony Uhlc, 
Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel, whose whole 
family w^as banished from Eussia l)y the usurping 
Empress Elizabeth. 

Ti:e infant Ivan had been dethroned, after being 
a king for exactly one year. 

^ During the reign of the Empress Catharine, he 
was detained in Schlusselburg “under the denomin- 
ation of a Person Unknown^ and it was given out 
that his senses were impaired, though it is pretty 
well understood that this is without foundation.^’ 
“ His fate has been particularly lamentable,” con- 
tinues a newspaper of the period ; “ torn from the 
bosom of his family, he has now passed twenty- 
three years in close captivity. The late Empress 


140 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


Elizabeth, towards the latter end of her life, seemed 
disposed to treat this noble captive with clemency 
and favor — either from sentiments of justice and 
compassion, or to render two great personages more 
circumspect and submissive.” 

These personages were her successors, the un- 
fortunate Peter III. and Catharine II. 

Ivan’s mother is said to have died of grief ; but 
Duke Anthony Ulric and his four other children 
were all confined for life in a house at Horsens, a 
town of Jutland, at the extremity of the Baltic 
where they had a precinct of a mile English ; but 
it was surrounded by high palisades, beyond which 
they dared not venture under pain of death ; and 
there the Duke, old and blind, passed the last years 
of his melancholy life. 

His youngest daughter, Elizabeth, was a woman 
of high spirit and elegant manners,” according to 
Coxe, the traveler, who visited her ; “ she possessed 
portraits of her father and mother, and even con- 
trived to procure a rouble of her brother Ivan, 
struck during his short reign. It is difficult to con- 
jecture how she could obtain a coin, the possession 
of which was more than once punished by the Em- 
press Elizabeth as high treason, as it is still more 
difficult to imagine how ^he could secret it from the 
knowledge of her guards during her long imprison- 
ment.” 

Confinement had rendered Ivan’s features un- 


THE IMPERIAL PRISONER. 


141 


naturally pale and delicate ; and, by years of syste- 
matic constraint and oppression, his fine, clear, and 
very beautiful dark eyes had a soft, subdued and 
chastened expression, that was singularly touching 
and winning. 

The tone of his voice was also gentle and al- 
luring. 

Hospodeen,” said he, presenting his hand to 
Balgonie, I rejoice to meet you, if one who leads 
a life so strange as mine can be said to rejoice ; but 
you are one to whom I may talk a little without 
danger — eh. Father Chrysostom ? And he has told 
me, Hospodeen, that you are not a Russian, but a 
native of some island that is for away in the sea. 
What are you ? A Tartar — a Tcherkesse ? Oh no, 
you cannot be either. 1 know them ; for they 
guard me,” he added, with a little shudder. 

“ I am your friend, believe me, Ivan Anton o- 
vitch,” replied Balgonie, who was touched by the 
childlike simplicity of the poor recluse, who was 
plainly attired in a caftan of fine green cloth, edged 
with a narrow trimming of yellow fur ; the square 
crowned cap, which he only wore when in the 
grated court, was of the same materials. A small 
gold cross was at his neck, a rosary of amber hung 
at his right wrist, and a little pipe, the only luxury 
allowed him, was dangling from one of his breast 
buttons. 

When in his presence Balgonie always thought 


142 


THE SECRET DlSPAtCH. 


with horror of the cruel tenor of the dispatch he 
had brought, and trembled for the result of his 
friends’ conspiracy. 

To teach Ivan anything, even to read or to write, 
was treason ; yet he had gleaned a little of his oXvm 
histoi 7 , and that of his family, from the casual re- 
marks of his guards and from tlie Chaplain, during 
the long, long years of his captivity, the reason for 
which he fa led to understand, but the system of 
which had become as a second nature to him ; and 
the little he learned, made a deep, rather than a 
bitter, impression upon him. 

The whole energies of each successive Chaplain 
had hem given to preparing him for another and a 
brighter state of existence, and to turning his hopes 
and wishes towards it, rather than to this world, of 
which he was well-nigh weary if not utterly ignor- 
ant ; and so much was he impressed by the uncer- 
tainty of human life in general, and of his own in 
particular, that daily, for years, he had seen the sun 
rise from tlie waters of Ladoga in doubt whether 
he would see it set ; and nightly had he laid down 
his 1 cad without the assurance of being a live man 
in tlie morning. 

Life had no charm — death no terror for Ivan. 

In his visits, which were frequent, as the young 
Prince had conceived a great regard for him, 
Charlie Balgonie knew not upon what topes to con- 
verse ; for he experienced great difficulty in fashion- 


THE IMPERIAL PRISONER. 


143 


ing his sentences and observations to suit a listener 
whose knowledge of the external world and of all the 
machinery of life was so limited. In those visits 
Balgonie was always accompanied by the Chaplain, 
or Captain Ylasfief, as the watchful and suspicious 
Bernikoff would by no means permit them to have 
an interview alone. 

“ I am so glad to have you for a friend, Ivano- 
vitch Balgonie,” the Prince would say sometimes; 
‘‘ though Father Chrysostom assures me that kings 
may have peers and soldiers, serfs and slaves, but, 
alas ! they can never have 2^. friend! I have heard 
my guards say that I was once a King — an Em- 
peror ; but I cannot remember when. It must have 
been long, long ago, as Bussia has had four mon- 
archs since. I have not even a dream of it — an Em- 
peror ? Yet I shall, too, probably die even as Deme- 
trius did. I cannot remember even my mother; 
for they tell me she died of sorrow, when I was 
brought here from a place called Moscow. Do you, 
Hospodeen, remember yours ? ” 

When I was but a child she died, to my sorrow. 
Had she lived, I might not have been here in Bussia 
to-day,” replied Balgonie. 

“ Well — but you may remember,” persisted the 
young Prince. 

True, your Highness ; memories I have of a 
soft fair face that bent over my little bed at night; 
of one who kissed and hushed me to sleep ; but those 


144 : 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


memories are faint and vivid, broken and uncertain, 
according to my mood of mind ; and strange it is 
that they come to me more in dreams by night than 
thoughts by day, especially as I grow older.” 

“I should like to have some such dreams, but 
then I have nothing to remember ; I know not even 
my own age or w’hen I came here,” said Ivan 
thoughtfully. ‘‘ If I do dream by night, I seem to 
hear only what I hear by day — the voices of the 
Cossack sentinels, the screams of the sea-birds, the 
dashing of the waves when the wind crosses the 
lake, or the clanging of the castle bell. Then there 
are times when I dream that I see Demetrius, and 
then I awake in a cold perspiration. Tell me 
of the things that are being acted in the great 
world that lies beyond the Lake of Ladoga, for 
Father Chrysostom speaks to me only of Heaven.” 

“It is said that the King of Prussia has agreed 
to the proposal of — of — the Empress, about the 
county of Wirtemberg, in Silesia.” 

“ How, agreed ? ” 

“ Count Biron is to have the estate as Duke of 
Courland, on paying eight thousand guineas to 
Field-Marshal Count Munich,” said Balgonie. 

The Prince sighed with a bewildered air, for all 
those names were quite new to him. 

“ And who is Count Biron ? ” he asked. 

“ A friend of the Empress,” said Father Chrysos- 
tom rather hastily, to anticipate the reply of Balgonie. 


THE IMPERIAL PRISONER. 


145 


“Tell me something more. Kay, Father Chry- 
sostom, don’t chide us, pray,” said he, seeing that 
the white bearded chaplain looked uneasy and rose 
to retire. 

“ Conversation of this kind is strictly forbidden,” 
said he ; “ and if Captain Ylasfief was here ” 

“ Oh ! ” exclaimed the Prince with a shudder, 
but not of anger (he seemed too gentle for that 
emotion), “ don’t talk of Ylasfief I implore you. 
Pray tell me more news, Hospodeen ; I shall learn 
all the names in time, and try to remember 
them.” 

“ There are strange tidings from Warsaw,” re- 
plied Balgonie, who began to get bewildered and 
knew not on what to converse, if the most simple 
topics of the day were forbidden ; “ a battle has 
been fought at Slonim, between Prince Padzivil 
and the Russians, who defeated him after a five 
hours’ engagement; and the Princess Radzivil, who 
is newly married and remarkably beautiful, fought 
on horseback among the Polish troops.” 

“ Ah, Demetrius fought on horseback too,” said 
the Prince, as if speaking to himself, and a gesture 
of undisguised impatience escaped the chaplain ; 
“pray tell me something more, for no one ever 
speaks of such things to me.” 

“A new theatre has been opened at St. Peters- 
bm'g,” replied Balgonie (who thought to himself, 
“ the devil is in it, if I cannot speak of that ! ”), 


146 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


‘‘ and there was represented an opera, entitled 
Charles the GreatP 

“ Ah, I don’t quite understand all that ; say it 
again.” 

Indeed, Balgonie might as well have spoken of 
carbonic gas or the Atlantic cable, had he ever 
heard of such things ; for the mind of the young 
Prince could not comprehend the most simple mat- 
ters of every day-life. This was merely the result 
of his entire seclusion ; but the adherents of the 
Empress, her favorites and lovers, industriously 
circulated through Pussia the report that he was in 
a state of idiotcy. 

And this place that you spoke of % ” he resumed 
enquiringly. 

“ The theatre ? ” 

“ Yes, Hospodeen ; who lives in it ? ” 

‘‘One of the actresses performed a magnificent 
cantata, in honor of the Empress.” 

“ Ah ! ’tis she, I understand, who keeps me here,” 
said the Prince, with a sad smile ; and now in real 
terror, and quite repenting the introduction he had 
brought about. Father Chrysostom rose to hurry 
Balgonie away. 

As they were retiring, the Prince said : — 

“ Hospodeen, you have dropped something.” 

It was the locket with Hatalie’s hair. 

“ What is in tins ? ” asked Ivan, with childlike 
interest. 


THE liMl’ERIAL PRISONER. 


147 


A lock of liair, your Highness.” 

“ How odd ! and you wear it, just as I wear my 
cross ? ” 

It is the gift, the souvenir of a lady I love, and 
who loves me : a countrywoman of your own.” 

‘‘A woman ? ” said Ivan, ponderingly. 

Yes, Excellency.” 

‘‘ I liave never looked upon a woman’s face, and 
know not what it is like ; though the Empress (whom 
God long preserve!) visited me when a child, as I 
have been told. I have heard that they are not 
bearded like men. I shall never see one, it is for- 
bidden; yet — ^}^et — as I often tell Father Chrysos- 
tom, I have dreams by day — dreams of something 
else than wild swans and bearded Cossacks — of 
something to cling to, some one to love and be 
loved by. It must be this kind of love you speak 
of — oh yes, it must ! ” said Ivan, as he gazed with 
stupid, but reverent wonder at the lock of hair, ere 
he returned it to Balgonie. 

“ Poor young Prince ! ” exclaimed the latter, as 
the chaplain hurried him away, and the portcullis 
clanged behind tliem in its grooves of stone. 

The priest now urged upon Balgonie, that if his 
visits were to be continued, the affairs of the outer 
world must in no way be referred to, or the result 
might be most disastrous for all concerned. 

“ The seclusion in whicli the prisoner is kept, has, 
I fear, impaired his understanding,” said Balgonie. 


148 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


Hah ! do you think so ? ” grunted Colonel Ber- 
nikoff, who overheard the remark, as they issued 
from the tower of Ivan. “ You must know, that 
your genuine Russian is like a tiger, as some writer 
has it — a tiger who licks the hand of his keeper, so 
long as he is chained ; but who tears him asunder 
when loose. The Empress quite understands this ! ” 

“ How is it that you intrust me so freely to visit 
your prisoner ? ” asked Charlie, who began to fear 
that Bernikoff might be laying some snare for him, 
by according this hitherto unwonted permission. 

“ Do you really wish to know ? ” 

Yes, Colonel — why I in particular — I only ? ” 

‘‘ Because you are the safest man in Russia to 
have this liberty.” 

“ How?” 

“ As a soldier of fortune, — a stranger among us, 
— ^you can have no sympathy with anything but the 
strict and steady execution of your duty ; and the 
line of that,” added Bernikoff, darting a keen glance 
at the Scot, “ as with us all, lies in fidelity to the 
Empress.” 

‘‘ True,” replied Balgonie, with something of sad- 
ness in his tone, and very little of enthusiasm. 

“ Thus, were I to order you to blow Ivan Antono- 
vitch from the mouth of a cannon, I should expect 
you to obey ! ” 

I trust that no such test of my obedience will 
ever be necessary,” replied Balgonie, with a hauteur 


THE IMPERIAL PRISONER. 


149 


which Bernikoff was somewhat unused to see among 
his subordinates. 

“We shall have some other and more trouble- 
some prisoners in Schlusselburg ere long,” said the 
Governor, with knitted brows. 

“ Whom do you mean ? ” 

“ Old Count Mierowitz and his family. Warrants 
have been issued by the Chancellor to arrest them 
all.” 

“ All ! ” said Balgonie, in a faint voice. 

“Yes, women as well as men: an escort of the 
Begiment of Smolensko arrived at St. Petersburg 
yesterday with the Count and the Hospoza Mario- 
lizza. His daughter, who seems to be deeply in" 
volved in some plot, has for the time effected her 
escape. But they will soon be all before the Secret 
Chancery, and then the knout and the wheel will be 
at work with a vengeance ! ” 

The reader may judge how these and similar re- 
marks affected poor Charlie ; while the Governor, as 
if pleased that he could thus inflict pain, walked 
away with a malicious smile on his sombre visage, 
cramming tobacco into the bowl of his pipe. 

There were times, however, when the captive 
Prince, after his acquaintance with Balgonie, was a 
little less resigned, and had strange longings to see 
something of the great world that lay beyond his 
prison walls, and the waves that lashed them ; to see 
other faces than those of the flerce and bearded 


150 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


Tcliernemoski and Volga Cossacks who guarded 
him ; a longing even to do something great and dar- 
ing, to be remembered in after years with love and 
reverence ; to be remembered, as he said, “ in tradi- 
tion, like Demetrius.” Then, feeling all tlie utter 
hopelessness of such new aspirations, he would strive 
to be contented, to repeat with fresh energy the 
daily prayers set for him by Father Chrysostom, and 
to be grateful for life, lest he should die even as 
Demetrius died. 

“ Who is this Demetrius, of whom he constantly 
speaks, and whose fate he fears so much may be his 
own ? ” asked Balgonie one day. 

“ It is an old, but a strange and terrible story,” 
replied the chaplain. “ When Ivan Basilovitch 
died about the end of the sixteenth century, his 
widow was banished to Northern Russia by the new 
Czar Feodor, whose Prime Minister urged that he 
could never reign in peace or security unless he im- 
itated the Turks by sacrificing all who were nearly 
allied to the throne ; so he exiled his mother, as I 
have said, and ordered an officer to assassinate his 
younger brother Demetrius. 

“ The officer, being a humane man, was filled with 
horror on receiving an order so barbarous ; but fear- 
ing alike to disobey, or to leave the terrible task to 
be fulfilled by one less scrupulous, he took the child 
with him to a remote district, travelling many days’ 
journey from Moscow. Then he \^h’oto some words 


THE IMPERIAL PRISONER. 


151 


indelibly on the skin of the little Prince, tied a cross 
of brilliants about his neck, laid him at the door of 
a peasant’s hut, an l galloped away. 

‘‘To the tyrant Feodor he gave a circumstantial 
detail of how and where he liad killed the infant 
Prince, and sought the promised reward. 

“ ‘ Receive it thus ! ’ replied Feodor, who plunged 
a sword into his heart, the further to suppress all 
proof of guilt. 

“ The young tyrant died of a poison administered 
by his Chancellor, and others inherited his crown ; 
but all to perish miserably, in succession. And no 
less than four pretenders all appeared, each calling 
himself Demetrius, to contest for the throne ; and 
all the land was deluged with blood. 

“ Some twenty years after the alleged death of 
the brother of Ivan, a young Cossack of the Volga 
was bathing in that river with some of his compan- 
ions, who saw with surprise that he had chained 
round his neck a cross of brilliants, and that certain 
words in the old Muscovite character were pricked 
upon his back. They were examined by a neigh- 
bouring priest and found to be — 

^This is Demetmus^ son of the Czar^ 

“ Then all exclaimed that the true Demetrius had 
been found at last, and that a miracle from Heaven 
had saved him. His life was soon in peril, so he 
fled to Holstein, the Duke of which, after keeping 


152 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


him long in prison, sold him to the Emperor Mich- 
ael, by whom he was savagely quartered alive. And 
it is the fate of this hapless heir of Russia, whose 
story he thinks in some points resembles his own 
(although he really knows but little of his own an- 
nals), that haunts the unfortunate Ivan in his gloom- 
iest hours.” 


CHAPTEK XVI. 


THE TRATKIR. 

W ITH evident suspicion and mistrust, Bernikoff 
viewed the growing intimacy between his 
prisoner Ivan and the Scottish Captain; and 
though he neither recommended that it should 
cease or interdicted it, as he might and perhaps 
ought to have done, he made many mental notes 
thereof. 

Though Balgonie sympathised with Ivan to the 
fullest extent, he knew too well the danger of doing 
more ; and he felt that he had his own share of 
secret sorrow and anxiety, and might yet have 
greater to endure. The girl he loved with all the 
strength of a first and romantic passion was already 
a political fugitive ; her father and cousin were 
prisoners, and perhaps in chains ; her brother and his 
kinsman, Usakofi, already viewed as criminals; and 
with the terrors of despotism hanging over them all. 

Natalie a fugitive — and where ? In the wild 
forests, perhaps, where wolves and outlaws lurked, 
what perils and privations might she not be suffer- 
ing ! Natalie so delicate, so pure, so gently nur- 
tured, and so highly bred. 


153 


154 


THE SEOHET DISPATCH. 


Balgonie was aware, also, that intimacy with the 
family of Count Mierowitz, and the deep interest 
he had in their fate, was fraught with personal 
peril to himself in such a land of tyranny as Russia. 
Full of such thoughts as these one forenoon, he 
was leaning on a cannon in one of those deep em- 
brasures of the fortress which faced the drawbridge 
communicating with the land. The guard was in 
the act of lowering the bridge to permit a man to 
pass out. This person was just parting from Berni- 
koff, with whom he had been for some time in close 
and earnest conversation, and from wdiom he w^as 
evidently receiving money — an unusual circum- 
stance, as that distinguished field-officer generally 
lavished more kicks and cuffs, than thanks or 
kopecs. 

On beholding this man, as he bowled humbly, cap 
in hand, cross the bridge and disappear among the 
houses of the town beyond, Balgonie experienced a 
species of nervous shock. He could not doubt that 
this fellow, so gigantic in stature and powerful in 
muscular development, in the coarse caftan and 
leathern girdle, with the long lock of grizzled hair 
dangling behind his right ear, was Nicholas Paulo- 
vitch, the murderer of Podatchkine, the gipsy 
woodman, and the swindling mendicant of the bar- 
rier at the Neva. 

‘‘ This man here in Schlusselburg,” thought Bal- 
gonie, with indignation and alarm ; “ here in earnest 


THE TRATKIR. 


156 


conversation with Bernikoff ! The spirit of mis- 
chief seems to pervade the air again ! ” 

A few minutes afterwards the Cossack Jagouski 
who, as related, had been so severely knouted by 
Bernikoff for pilfering a pipeful of tobacco, came 
forward with tottering steps, and looking painfully 
thin and feeble from recent suffering ; and with 
the crouching bearing of the Muscovite towards a 
superior, said that his Excellency, the Governor 
wished to speak with him in his quarters, whither 
Balgonie at once repaired, after having, as military 
etiquette required, buckled on his sword. 

‘‘ Carl Ivano\dtch,” said Bernikoff, who certainly 
had rather a perturbed air, “ some suspicious charac- 
ters are in our vicinity, and have actually been 
hovering in boats about the fortress. What think 
you of that ? ’’ 

“ Suspicious characters. Excellency — how ? ” 

In a Tratkir of the town, one dropped this coin 
— a silver rouble of the prisoner Ivan — Ivan the 
Unknown Person. To possess one, unless as I do 
this^ for proof of treason, is to court death or Si- 
beria.’’ 

“ And from whom had you this ? ” 

“ A spy,” replied tlie Colonel curtly. 

“ The man who has just left you ? ” 

The same.” 

“ Nicholas Paulovitch,” continued Balgonie, with 
increasing astonishment at the other’s coolness; 


156 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


“ the assassin of the Corporal — the wretch of whom 
I told you when I first arrived here ! ” 

All that may, or may not he,” replied Berni- 
koff, with a stern air, almost amounting to rude- 
ness ; when I require this devil of a fellow no 
more, you may impale him, if you please ; but mo- 
lest him not, at present.” 

I do not see. Excellency, that all this in any 
way concerns me,” said Balgonie haughtily, as he 
lifted his hat, and put his sabre under his arm, as if 
about to retire. 

“ It does concern you thus far. I shall anticipate 
any attempt that be made by those lurkers, who- 
ever they may be. You must remember,” he 
added, lowering his voice, “ the tenor of the dis* 
patch you brought me ? ” 

“ Perfectly,” replied Charlie, in a somewhat faint 
voice, as he knew not how terrible or repugnant 
might be the duty assigned him by this military 
despot. 

“Well, you shall pass forth into the town to- 
night, with a patrol of twenty men, armed with 
sabres and carbines. Surround and search the Trat- 
kir in the main street, and compel all therein, who 
seem suspicious, to produce their papers ; and, if 
they are without such, bring them to nne^ and I shall 
question them in a fashion of my own.” 

By the laws of Russia, at that time, persons 
could not travel from St. Petersburg, or even from 


THE TRATKIR. 


157 


place to place, without a passport — describing their 
occupation, appearance, and route, which they were 
not at liberty to alter ; and in the rural districts, 
travellers required a pass from the lord whose estate 
they may have been upon, before they were at lib- 
erty to quit it. Without such a document, no one 
would dare to furnish them with food or shelter; 
nor would a postmaster give them horses, however 
high their rank, or great their offer of reward — to 
such complete subjection had the system of ac- 
cepted despotism reduced the people. 

And I am to take twenty men with me ? ” said 
Balgonie, after an unpleasant pause. 

Yes ! the bridge will be lowered for you after 
sunset. Whoever these lurkers are, they have been 
seen and overheard ; and this coin is proof sufficient 
to warrant the transportation of a whole province. 
Be they who they may, by every dome in sacred 
Mother Moscow, they shall find me ready for 
them ! ” 

And Bernikoff grimly touched his small dagger, 
a species of weapon which a Russian officer is sel- 
dom or never without, even in the present day ; and 
when Charlie Balgonie remembered how that same 
dagger had been thrust into the throat of the half- 
strangled Peter III., a fiush of indignant hate and 
aversion crossed his honest face. To him it was evi- 
dent that the spirit of mischief or malevolence made 
Bernikoff select him, as one whom he suspected of a 


158 


THE SECKET DISPATCH. 


friendly interest in tlie family of Count Mierowitz, 
for this unpleasant duty, instead of Captain Ylasfief, 
the Lieutenant of Schlusselburg, or any other officer, 
who must have been ])etter acquainted with the ad- 
jacent town and all its places of entertainment, than 
he, a total stranger, could ever be. 

But. he was a soldier; he had no resource but to 
obey in silence ; and an angry sigh escaped him as 
he stuck his loaded pistols in his girdle, when the 
sun sank behind the green painted roofs of the 
wooden town, and the evening gun boomed from the 
ramparts across the Lake of Ladoga. 

Defiling in the twilight through the streets of 
Schlusselburg, he marched straight to where he knew 
that the principal Tratkir, or tea-house, was situated ; 
and while his heart sank within him in fear of whom 
he might arrest, — perhaps Natalie herself, — he at 
once surrounded the building, to prevent all egress, 
and to the evident alarm and perturbation of all who 
were within. 

These tea-houses are no longer to be found in the 
capital of Bussia now, for there all the restaurants 
are constituted and arranged upon the French and 
German models ; but they still exist in Moscow and 
elsewhere; and under their roofs, the genuine Mus- 
covite consumes what would seem a fabulous amount 
of the Chinese plant. They are chiefiy the resort of 
soldiers, porters, and droski drivers, all of whom 
must behave in a polite and orderly manner while 


THE TRATKIR. 


159 


there. All must enter the great room where the 
tea is served, cap in hand, alike out of respect for 
the company, and to the holy pictures, Souzdal daubs 
of SS. Sergius, Alexander Newski, and so forth, 
which decorate the walls ; and all must salute the 
bar-keeper, after first saluting the Holy Image, 
which is to be found in every Hussian apartment, 
and before which, a lamp of train oil is frequently 
burning. 

When the crooked sabres of the dismounted Cos- 
sacks were seen hashing in the porch, and when Bal- 
gonie entered with his sword di-awn, passing along 
the narrow way between the numerous tables, at 
which the groups were seated, amid an oppressive 
odour of strong tea, coarse tobacco, and Hussian 
leather from boots, caps, and girdles — many a peasant 
in his canvas caftan, and many a stout moujik in his 
fur shoubah, felt his heart quail with apprehension, 
he knew not of what ; and every saucer — the tea is 
not drunk from cups — was set down untasted, while 
one or two men nearly choked themselves with their 
lumps of sugar; for usually it is not put into the tea, 
but is retained in the mouth of the drinker, so that, 
in a spirit of economy, the poor Muscovite may in- 
dulge in two, perhaps three cups of his favourite 
beverage, and use thereto but one piece of sugar. 

For his intrusion Balgonie apologised ; this, 
though a very unusual proceeding in a country so 
despotic, failed to reassiu'e the tea drinkers, who 


160 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


were all hushed in silence and expectation ; and a 
girl who had been singing for their amusement, 
crouched down in a corner for concealment. 

Balgonie counted the number of persons in the 
Tratkir, and noted the exact hour by his watch ; he 
then proceeded, with a heart full of anxiety and 
dread, to examine each person in succession, in real- 
ity looking for those he had no wish to find. 

All wlio possessed the requisite papers, showed 
them ; others proved, all in succession, to be soldiers 
in uniform, moujiks, and droski drivers, with their 
brass badges, sailors, and serfs ; thus, after a time, 
a load seemed to be lifted from the mind of the 
young ofiicer. As he turned to leave the apartment 
without a prisoner, the Cossack Jagouski rather 
roughly dragged the singing girl from the nook 
where she had sought concealment, and then Bah 
gonie recognised the fine dark face, the blnck eyes, 
and the large glittering ear-rings of Olga Paulowna, 
the gipsy girl whom he had befriended at Louga — 
she who saved him from a terrible fate in the forest. 

“Let the girl go free, Jagouski,” said Balgonie; 

I shall answer for her if required.” 

Olga drew a paper from her bosom and showed 
that it was her passport from the Commandant of 
Krejko, permitting her to travel to and from Schlus- 
selburg. 

Jagouski saluted and withdrew a few paces; and 
now, as if the cloud of doubt and dread Balgonie’s 


THK TRATKIB. 


161 


arrival had cast over all was dispersed, again the 
noisy hum of voices pervaded the long room of the 
tea-house, and laughter even broke forth at intervals. 

“ Olga,” said Balgonie, “ you here — so far from 
home ? ” 

“ Yes, Hospodeen, for my home is anywhere, oi- 
wherever night finds me ; but I have news for you.” 

“ News — and for me ? ” 

“ Yes,” said she, sinking her voice to a whisper ; 

I have news of Natalie Mierowna ” 

“ Hush, for heaven’s sake, girl ! — hush ! ” said 
Balgonie with a nervous start. 

“ She is here ” 

“ Here in this house ? ” 

“ No, Hospodeen.” 

“ Where then ? — oh, speak quickly ! ” 

“ In the neighborhood of Schlusselburg.” 

Charlie felt his heart die within him at this in- 
telligence, for such a vicinity was full of peril. 

“ Be to-morrow at noon on the road that leads to 
Tosna, and you shall learn more ; but do you know 
it, Hospodeen ? ” 

“ I shall soon discover it — and the place ? ” 

“ The skii’ts of the wood four versts from this.” 

“ Good — till then, adieu ; and God be with you.” 

Balgonie retired all unaware or heedless that his 
Cossacks were secretly jesting at his whispering 
with the pretty gipsy ; and through the dark streets 
he marched them towards the great and sombre 


THE SECRET DiSHATCH. 


m 

masses of the fort which loomed between him and 
the star-lighted skj, his heart the while being liter- 
ally sick with alarm and dismay, in the conviction 
that the long-di’eaded crisis was coming — that Nata- 
lie was near, and the place of her concealment was 
known to a vagrant gipsy girl, the sister of Nicho- 
las Paulovitch, who, if he knew it not already, 
might wrest the secret from her with the point of 
his knife, for the information of him whose spy he 
was — the hateful Bernikoff ! 

E-uin and sorrow was close at hand, indeed. 

On receiving the official but verbal report of Bal- 
gooie, and learning that the visit to the identical 
tea-house where the dangerous rouble was found 
had proved abortive, and that there was no one to 
be knouted or hanged in the morning. Colonel 
Bernikoff became transported with rage, and lifted 
his cane somewhat threateningly. On this, Bal- 
gonie’s hand was instantly laid on the hilt of his 
sword. 

“ Beware, Excellency,” said he firmly : “ a blow 
to an equal is a foul insult ; to an inferior it is 
mean tyranny ; and, in either instance, blood alone 
should wash it out.” 

On this the Colonel’s rage assumed a new phase ; 
he trod on his cocked hat, and ordered the wax can- 
dles which he had always burning before the image 
of his patron, St. Sergius, to be extinguished. He 
loaded the effigy with the bitterest reproaches, and 


THE TKATKIR. 


163 


for that night left the poor saint in total dark- 
ness, despite the intercession of Father Chrysos- 
tom. 


CHAPTEE XYIL 


THE WOOD OF THE HONEY TREE. 

WfHE noon of the following day saw Charlie 
Balgonie — after an anxious and almost sleep- 
less night — proceeding on foot along the road that 
leads southward to Tosna, a little town which stands 
on a stream of the same name, a tributary of the 
Neva, but some thirty versts distant from Schlus- 
selburg. 

His military ardor was already fading, so far as 
the Eussian service was concerned, amid his press- 
ing anxiety for the dangers that menaced Natalie ; 
and he felt himself only a species of serf in an im- 
perial uniform. Unlike the Admirals Douglas, 
Mackenzie, Count Balmaine, and hundreds of other 
Scotsmen wlio served the Empress by sea and land, 
he had thoughtlessly omitted to stipulate, as they 
had more warily done, that he was to be at perfect 
liberty, as a British subject, to return to his native 
land whenever he felt disposed to do so. The poor 
friendless boy — the kidnapped Palatine, who had 
been rescued from the burning wreck of the Pis- 
catona^ while floating adrift in the North Sea — could 
know little how necessary such stipulations were 
164 


THE WOOD OF THE HONEY TREE. 165 

when he joined the Regiment of Smolensko as a 
cadet ; and now he felt himself literally a military 
slave of the ambitious and lascivious Catharine II. 

Before him rose tlie tall fir trees of the forest 
where he w^as to meet Olga — the Wood of the 
Honey Tree, as it was named from an episode (re- 
lated by Demetrius, the ambassador, in his History 
of Muscovy) which occured to a serf of Bernikoff’s, 
Alexis Jagouski, father of the same man whom he 
slew so wickedly and ungratefully in the flight from 
Zorndorf; and the whole anecdote reads so very 
like one of the adventures of Baron Munchausen, 
or Sir Jonah Barrington’s “bounces,” that we may 
be pardoned translating it here. 

“ This man,” says Demetrius, “ when seeking 
honey, got into a hollow tree, where the bees had 
concealed such a quantity thereof, that it sucked 
him up to the breast, and being unable to extricate 
himself, he subsisted for two days upon honey alone; 
and finding that his shouts were answered only by 
the echoes of the vast forest, he began to despair of 
being freed from his sweet captivity. At last, to 
his terror, there came a large brown bear from the 
Neva, to eat of the honey which the old tree con- 
tained, and of which these animals are greedily 
fond. As the bear was descending with hinder 
part foremost, the poor serf caught hold of his loins. 
This sudden grasp among his fur so terrified the 
bear, that he started and fled, and in doing so, drew 


166 


THE 8E0KET DISPATCH. 


the peasant from that sweet prison, which other- 
wise had proved his grave : hence was the forest 
named, the Wood of the Honej Tree.” 

There, as Balgonie approached, all was still save 
the voice of the valdchnep, or woodcock, and the 
hum of insects ; he lingered for a few minutes on 
the outskirts, just where the highway to Tosna 
dipped down into a deep and gloomy dingle of in- 
tertwisted branches, which formed a species of 
leafy tunnel overhead. 

Three miles distant to the northward, he could 
see the place he had left, the gloomy Castle of 
Schlusselburg, moated round by the Neva and Lake 
of Ladoga, jutting into the latter on its rock, its 
towers wearing a sombre brown tint even in the 
noonday sunshine, as if no light could brighten 
them ; and the white flag of Russia was fluttering 
on the summit of the keep, where Ivan was pining 
away the years of youth in silence and seclusion. 

Balgonie heard a voice waking the echoes of the 
dingle ; three notes were struck on a tambourine, 
as a signal to him, and Olga approached singing a 
verse of that prophetic song, which is so soothing 
to Russian military and religious vanity : — 

‘ ‘ But when the hundredth year 
Shall three times doubled be ; 

Then shall the end appear 
Of all our slavery. 

Then shall the warlike powers 
From distant climes return, 


THE WOOD OF THE HONEY TREE. 


167 


Egypt again be ours, 

While the Turkish domes shall burn 1 ” 

I have kept mj appointment, Olga.” 

“ And I mine,” she replied gaily, while tripping 
towards him in a playful manner ; “ now follow me, 
Hospodeen, and I shall take you to those who will 
be right glad to see you.” 

‘‘ First let us be sure that we are unwatched.” 

“ Kight,” said she ; and stooping in her earnest- 
ness, her keen, dark, and glittering eyes swept the 
whole landscape that lay between the wood and 
Schlusselburg, and glanced keenly beyond the stems 
of the trees into the dingles and vistas ; but, save 
the birds on the branches and the gnats revolving 
in the sunshine, no living thing was visible. 

Follow, me Hospodeen,” said the gipsy ; we 
have not far to go.” 

They descended into the dark dingle, or hollow, 
and then quitted the highway ; Olga gathering up 
her skirts that she might tread with greater facility 
among the thick gorse and long rank grass, display- 
ing, as she did so, two very handsome and taper 
ankles cased in scarlet stockings with elaborate 
clocks of yellow braid. 

She explained to Balgonie that, as there was no 
path to guide them, her chief clues were a set of 
notches, cut to all appearance carelessly, as if with 
a woodman’s axe, on the bark of the great pine 
trees. 


168 


THE STICRET DiSPATCfl. 


“ These marks seem fresh, and recently cut — 
who made them ? ” asked Balgonie. 

“ The Hospodeen, Basil Mierowitz,” she whis- 
pered. 

‘‘ Poor Basil ! ” responded Charlie, in a low tone. 

After toiling through the dense forest for more 
than half an hour, pausing ever and anon to listen 
and watch whether they were observed, they arrived 
at the foot of a grey granite cliff, the face of which 
was screened, or nearly covered, by masses of de- 
pending ivy, creepers, and green lichens, forming a 
background which, at a little distance, blended with 
the greenery of the woods. 

“We have arrived,” said she, turning, with a flush 
on her dark face which made it radiantly beautiful. 
She struck three strokes on her tambourine, and 
shook its bells. 

Charlie thought of her kinsman, Nicholas Paulo- 
vitch, and instinctively grasped one of the pistols at 
his girdle, on seeing the dark and bearded face of a 
man appear among the ivy leaves some twenty feet 
above him. A rope ladder was lowered, and what- 
ever doubts or misgivings were in his mind, he felt 
liimself constrained now to go through the adventure 
to its end. 

He clambered up, and on the great screen of ivy 
being lifted aside, found himself face to face with 
his old friend Basil Mierowitz, the subaltern of his 
company, who, grasping both his hands with kindly 


THE WOOD OF THE HONEY TREE. 


169 


warmth of manner, led him into a cavern or grotto, 
one of a series of many, into which the granite rocks 
had there been hollowed by some long past convul- 
sion of nature. 

Another hand was instantly laid on his, — a smaller 
and softer one, — and two beautiful dark eyes were 
bending tenderly on his face. 

“ Natalie ! ” he exclaimed, in a tremulous voice, 
and would have pressed her to his breast, but for the 
presence of Basil and several other men. 

Amid the twilight of the cavern, he could per- 
ceive its rough natural walls and arch, with hazy but 
sunny rays that streamed faintly in the background, 
athwart the obscurity, as if the vault communicated 
with other galleries in the rock, through which the 
upper light of day stole in by the crannies and 
chasms. He was also enabled to see, that, with 
Natalie, her brother Basil, and lier cousin Usakoff, 
who had been a Lieutenant of the Yalikolutz Grena- 
diers, there were about twenty men in the place, all 
clad in sheepskin shoubahs, canvas doublets, or the 
caftan, the invariable dress of the Bussian peasant, 
and nearly all had red serge breeches, rough boots, 
and girdles of rope or un tanned leather. 

Though attired like woodmen or labouring serfs, 
all these men had unmistakably the bearing of well- 
trained soldiers : all were strong, active, and resolute 
in aspect ; and Balgonie had no doubt that they 
were those natives of the Ukraine, the deserters from 


170 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


the Livoniau frontier, of whom Bernikoff had 
spoken; for against the walls of the cavern were 
ranged a number of muskets and bayonets, with sets 
of accoutrements, sabres, and pistols. There, too, 
stood a regimental drum, decorated with the impe- 
rial arms, and the forbidden name of the Emperor 
Ivan ! 

Every moment seemed to increase the perils that 
surrounded the luckless Balgonie, for now he was in 
the very den of the conspirators. 

All carried in their girdles a dagger or knife and 
double brace of pistols. They seemed to be chiefly 
soldiers of the Regiment of Yalikolutz: and his 
sudden appearance among them, in the full uniform 
of the Smolensko Infantry, evidently excited, if it 
did not alarm them ; for discipline becomes so com- 
pletely a habit — a second nature ; and, as if the pre- 
sence of an epaulette rendered them uneasy, they all 
withdrew into the back or more obscure portion of 
the cavern, leaving him and their two leaders together. 

^‘Oh! Basil — Usakoff — my friends, if indeed I 
may yet dare to call you so, and live,” said Balgonie, 
in a voice that was liroken by emotion, “ for what 
rash and dreadful purpose do I find you and these 
unfortunate fellows here ? ” 

You, and all Rukia too, shall learn ere long,” 
replied Mierowitz calmly and sternly ; yet with a 
grave and noble air, with which his coarse canvas 
caftan assorted oddly. 


THE WOOD OF THE HONEY TREE. 


171 


“And poor Natalie!” exclaimed Balgonie, in a 
tone of grief and reproach; “have you no pity for 
her ? ” 

“Until Natalie informed me, I knew not, my 
friend, Carl Ivanovitch, that you were the bearer of 
that secret dispatch, which might have cost you limb 
or life, when it was too late to arrest those I had set 
upon your track.” 

“ Well, certainly, I was not much indebted to the 
good offices of your rogue, Podatchkine.” 

“ The Corporal’s orders were simply to abstract 
the document, and bring it to me ; not to slay its 
bearer, unless such a catastrophe became unavoid- 
able.” 

“ He fell into his own snare — a dark and deadly 
one.” 

“ Happily you escaped it ; and I have saved two 
hundred silver roubles, for the service of the Em- 
peror.” 

“Who do you mean?” asked Balgonie, in a 
whisper. 

“ Ivan — the Prisoner of Schlusselburg ! ” ex- 
claimed Usakoff, with enthusiasm. 

“ Alas 1 ” added Balgonie, “ you court but your 
own destruction.” 

“Think not so; but join us, and share our perils 
and our glory,” replied the other. 

“ I am bound by allegiance to the Empress.” 

“ You are but a tool in her hands, Carl Balgonie.” 


172 


THE SECfRET DISPATCH. 


“ Perhaps so ; but one with a devilish sharp edge, 
I hope,” replied Balgonie, who felt only genuine 
sorrow; and a silence of nearly a minute ensued. 

The manner and voice of Basil Mierowitz were 
singularly soft and winning, yet he was bold and 
resolute ; and though a young man, he had all the 
free and easy bearing of a courtly soldier, blended 
with something of the calm severity of a priest — a 
manner that was very impressive. 

The Polish and Cossack blood that mingled in 
the veins of Appollo Usakoff gave a freer and bolder, 
perhaps a wilder, bearing and. style of language ; hia 
nose was aquiline, and expressed fierceness of dis- 
position ; yet his features otherwise were essentially 
delicate and noble, and his eyes were strangely beau- 
tiful ift colour and variety of expression. They were 
dark gray, encircled by a ring of light, clear brown ; 
and when he spoke, or became excited, the iris con- 
tracted and expanded, as’the blood flowed and ebbed 
in his fiery and enthusiastic heart, for he was a grand- 
son of the Hetman Mazeppa — that Pole, whose 
story is so well known, and who, after being bound 
naked on a wild and maddened horse, to punish him 
for having an intrigue with a noble lady of his own 
country, was carried by his steed through woods and 
wastes, and herds of wolves and bears, into the heart 
of the Ukraine, where he lived to become the prince 
and leader of those wild Cossacks who dwell upon 
the banks of the Dnieper, 


THE WOOD OP THE HONEY TREE. 


173 


Sleeping in a cavern, among rough soldiers, on a 
bed of dried leaves and moss, had not improved 
either the costume or the appearance of Natalie 
Mierowna. With pain and sorrow, — almost with 
agony, — Charlie Balgonie could perceive how her 
once rich dress of yellow silk, with its trimmings of 
narrow ermine, was faded and soiled — even tattered 
and worn ; her laces and her soft hair alike dishevel- 
led and uncared for ; and that already liad a hunted 
and haggard expression been imparted to her beauti- 
ful eyes, and soft, pale, delicate facie. Anger and 
pride alone remained ; but both were for a time sub- 
dued by the sudden presence of Balgonie, and the 
love she was compelled to repress outwardly, at 
least, when before so many eyes. 

Katinka, the sturdy Polish attendant, who loved 
Natalie dearly, alone seemed unimpaired by the 
hardships of a forest life. 

“ Concerning the secret dispatch of the woman, 
Catharine Christianowna, to the Governor of Schlus- 
selburg,” said Usakoff, resuming the subject of con- 
versation, “ you, Carl, are perhaps aware of its con- 
tents ? ” 

“Yes,” replied Balgonie, and then paused. 

“ Say on, my friend,” said Uiakoff ; “ we can hear 
anything now.” 

“ They were to the effect, that a scheme had been 
formed to free the Unknown Person in Schusselburg, 
and that he was not to be permitted to fall alive 


174 THE SECRET DISRATCH. 

into the hands of any one who came to seek him^^ 

“ Savage orders, which there can be no mistaking.” 

Orders which Bernikoff is quite capable of ful- 
filling,” added Mierowitz in a sad and stern voice, 
while their listening followers burst into low and 
whispered, but fierce, imprecations against the Em- 
press. 

Bernikoff is a man wdthout one human sym- 
pathy,” said Basil. 

“ And no marvel is it ? ” exclaimed Usakoff, while 
the strange light already described gleamed in his 
dark grey eyes; ‘Oiis mother, like a true Tartar 
woman, is said to have anointed her breast daily 
with blood, as she suckled him — even as Dion tells 
us the mother of Caligula did, that her child might, 
in manhood, be merciless.” 

Ylasfief they stigmatised as “ the son of a goat,” 
being originally a boy of the great foundling Hos- 
pital at Moscow, where, when the increase of child- 
ren became so great that nurses could not be found, 
the lacteal food of animals was introduced, and a 
herd of goats adopted as wet-nurses for the estab- 
lishment. 

“ Carl,” said Basil, taking the hand of Balgonie, 
Natalie has told me all.” 

“All!” 

“ Yes — all that passed in Louga. Dear Natalie 

has never had a secret from me.” 

“ And you forgive me ? ” said Balgonie earnestly. 


Thu wood of The honey tree. 


m 


“ I do — but on this condition.” 

“ Oh. name it, Basil ! ” 

“ That if you do not join us, you will, at least, 
not actively oppose our scheme.” 

I scarcely know what it is.” 

“ Know this, then,” replied the other emphati- 
cally, yet softly, “ that on its success depends the 
success of your love ; for if it fails, then all our 
lives are lost ! ” 

“You say that you love my cousin, Katalie?” 
said young TJsakoff, in a somewhat loftier tone. 

“ W ith all my heart — with all my soul, I do ! ” 
replied Balgonie, pressing a hand of JSTatalie be- 
tween his own. 

“Yet, Carl, if you valued generosity and loved 
piety — if you loved glory and honor, as a soldier 
should, you would risk the loss even of hery — ^yea, 
give her up, if necessary, — and join us ! ” 

“ What would either life or glory be after such 
a sacrifice ? Ah, my friend, you never loved as I 
do I ” replied Charlie, with some irritation of man- 
ner. 

“ Perhaps ; but I have always thought how 
grandly terrible a figure was made by Mohammed 
the Great, when, on a stage, before his discontented 
army, he struck off the head of a favorite Sultana 
to convince his soldiers that he preferred glory to 
love.” 

“ Cousin, cousin,” said Katalie, who felt all the 


m 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


peril and delicacy of her lover’s position, ‘‘ you talk 
thus to-day, when last night you shed tears — ^}^es, 
bitter tears for the loss of your sister. We were 
all taken prisoners together, Carl — ^my poor father, 
Mariolizza, and I. Bound wdth cords, — see, the 
marks are on me still,” she added, showing her 
white wrists, while her dark eyes filled with a dusky 
fire, — “we were conveyed in a covered kabitka 
towards St. Petersburg, on the way to wdiich it 
broke down, in a wood near Paulovsk, not far from 
the outer walls of the imperial gardens. There, in 
the confusion, I was enabled to escape, by the aid 
of the gipsy girl Olga, who, hoping some such 
chance might occur, had followed us afoot from 
Longa; and through her further knowledge and 
assistance, I was enabled to join my brother Basil 
here.” 

“ My dear old father — and my soft and tender 
Mariolizza — a blow must be rapidly struck if we 
would save them from greater horrors than those 
they now endure ! ” exclaimed Basil ; “ the die has 
been cast now : and if I cannot save them and our 
legitimate Emperor, we can at least all perish to- 
gether.” 

“ Dangers menace you closely ; the roads around 
the fortress are patrolled, and gun-boats watch the 
shores of the lake. A coin of Ivan found in a tea- 
house ” 

“ Malediction — yes ’twas I, Carl, who dropped it 


THE WOOD OF THE HONEY TREE. 


177 


there,” exclaimed Basil : well, and this coin ? ” 
Has roused all the suspicions of Bernikoff ; and 
he knows that you and your cousin have deserted 
from your posts in Livonia.” 

“ Already, does he know of this ? ” 

Yes, with many other details.” 

‘‘Then,” replied Basil Mierovdtz, with growing 
sternness, “ we have not an hour to loose. Who in- 
formed him ? ” 

“ Lieutenant-General Weymarn, by a special mes- 
senger, while I was loitering at Longa.” 

“ So, so ! By our Lady of Kazan, we must be 
prompt in action. I have cruised thrice round 
Schlusselburg disguised as a fisherman, and know 
well all the approaches.” 

“ Basil, IJsakoff, I implore you by all you hold 
dear on earth and sacred in Heaven to pause while 
there is yet time — to abandon your wild scheme, and 
make your peace, if possible, with the Empress.” 

“ You were right to add ‘ if possible,’ my friend,” 
j replied the otlier calmly but bitterly. “ Already 
compromised by desertion, my father and betrothed 
wife chained in a fortress by the Neva, what terms 
would Catharine offer us ? Carl Ivanovitch,” he 
added, with a lofty smile, “ I do not press you to 
join us, or seek to lure you into the dangers of an 
enterprise the enthusiasm of whi(‘fi you cannot share. 
I do not seek even to turn your presence as a trusted 
staff officer in Schlusselburg to account j thougli it 


178 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


might further our objects, and be the means, per- 
haps, by strategy, of saving many a valuable life. 
Still less do I desire to turn to account your intimacy 
with the young Emperor Ivan, though I envy you 
that great privilege. Even in the love I bear my 
sister (though it might tempt you to cast your lot 
with us — with her shall I say ? ), I leave you un- 
questioned and free.” 

‘‘ I thank you, Basil,” said Balgonie sadly, and 
with a lieightened colour, caused by irrepressible an- 
noyance at the last remark of Mierowitz. 

‘‘ But we have all sworn before the altar of our 
Lady of Kazan, and the image of St. Sergius, to 
devote our lives to the matter in hand ; so retreat 
is impossible — advice and entreaty alike unavail- 
ing.” 

Balgonie felt an acute pang on hearing this ; for 
he knew that in Bussia no place was esteemed as 
more holy than the church of our Lady of Kazan in 
St. Petersburg. Around its shrine — the sanctum 
sanctorum of which no woman has ever entered — 
are the keys of conquered cities, the banners of a 
thousand slaughtered armies, and the batons and 
sabres of their leaders — the Frenchman, the Turk, 
the Pole, the Persian, and the Dane, the Swede and 
the German ; and he knew, too, that no image, to 
the Muscovite mind, is more sacred than that of St. 
Sergius — the same absurd idol which the Kazan 
column bore with them at the battle of the Alma^ 


THE WOOD OF THE HONEY TREE. 


179 


and displayed in vain to tlie advancing bayonets of 
old Sir Colin’s Highland Brigade. 

“ The blow once struck,” resumed Basil, “ we shall 
be joined by the Cossacks of the Ukraine and the 
Don, among whom we have many impatient adher- 
ents, and by all who hold of the Houses of Bruns 
wick- Wolf enbuttel, of Holstein Gottorp, and of all 
who hate Anhalt Zerbst ; all Bussia will soon follow, 
from the shores of the Black Sea to those of the 
White — from Bevel to the Ural Mountains. We 
have not forgotten the reign of Elizabeth: how 
many noses were slit, how many foreheads were 
branded, how many ears cropped, and tongues 
shortened, and how many eyes were darkened for 
ever diming the time of tyranny ; how many backs 
flayed by the knout ; how many nobles banished to 
Siberia, or drowned in prison vaults by the swollen 
waters of the Beva. Pure nationality is dying now ; 
but we must revive Bussia — not as it is ruled by a 
lascivious woman and her jealous lovers, but Holy 
Bussia of Peter the Great — strong, invincible, and 
the terror alike of the Eastern and Western world. 
Let us save our country from those who oppress it, 
and replace upon its tin-one the Grand Duke, the 
Czar — the Emperor Ivan ; for the right given by 
God and by inheritance, can never be destroyed ! ” 

A miu-mur of applause from* his followers suc- 
ceeded this outburst (which we can render but feebly 
in English), and they clashed their weapons in ap- 


180 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


proval, while, fired by her brother’s energy, Natalie 
sung a verse of a well known Russian song : — 

“ Now, as of old, the sabre’s ready. 

And its might they’ll feel afar, 

When hut three short words are utter’d, 

Ood, our Country y and the Czar! ” 

“ Without cannon, you cannot mean to assault a 
place so strong as Schlusselburg, fortified as it has 
been by all the skill of Todlebin ? ” said Balgonie, 
after a pause. 

“ Ask me not what we mean to do, Carl : for yoim 
own sake, my dear friend, the less you know of us, 
and of our plans, the better. We shall come upon 
you all when you least expect us, and in that hour 
take no heed of what you see or hear. Mix your- 
self up with it as little as you can : if we fail, we 
perish in our failure ; if we triumph, and Ivan is re- 
placed upon his throne, be assured that Basil Mier- 
owitz will not forget the lover of his sister — the 
comrade of many a brave and happy day with the 
Regiment of Smolensko. Now adieu — and come 
hither no more, lest your steps be watched.” 

Balgonie pressed the hands of his two friends, 
w^hom he viewed as fated and foredoomed men ; he 
kissed Natalie with a tenderness that was alike sor- 
rowful and despairing, for he trembled in his heart 
lest he should never see her more ; and, in another 
moment or so, like one in a bewildering dream, he 
had descended the rope ladder, and was traversing 


THE WOOD OF THE HONEY TREE. 


181 


the forest — the Wood of the Honey Tree — forget- 
ful or oblivious of whether he was watched or not. 

He foresaw but woe and ruin now ; and proceeded 
slowly back to Schlusselburg, with his mind a prey 
to doubt, anxiety, and dread of what might be the 
sequel to the impending catastrophe. He felt as- 
sured of one thing only — that a deed, bold, reckless, 
and desperate, would be the result of his friend’s 
desertion from Livonia, their political rancour, and 
personal desire for vengeance on the Empress and 
her favorites. 

In that deed, and its too probable failure, he fore- 
saw the destruction of his love ; and he felt bitterly 
that rather than have known and lost Natalie, it 
would have been better had fate drowned him when 
the Palatine ship was burned, or shot him when 
warring in Silesia I 


CHAPTER XYIIL 


. DOUBT AND DREAD. 

TM EARLY all the events which followed the 
secret visit of Balgonie to the conspirators 
will be found in the more recent histories of Russia, 
and in the manifestos published by the Empress 
Catharine at the time — especially her ouJcaz subse- 
quent to the revolt of Basil Mierowitz. 

On returning to Schlusselburg, Balgonie found 
the Governor, Colonel Bernikoff, in a very bad hu- 
mor indeed. The Grand Chancellor had recently 
sent him a prisoner, with a note to the effect that 
he wrote verses, and was otherwise a dangerous fel- 
low — to keep him for a week or two, and then get 
rid of him. He had thrice sent to the Chancellor, 
to learn under what name the man was to be hurled, 
for the fellow was dead now — so much had the damp 
atmosphere of the lower vaults disagreed with his 
poetical temperament ; but no answer had been re- 
turned, which was very annoying. So Bernikoff, 
whose patience was never very extensive, was fu- 
rious; but he strove to soothe his ruffled feelings 
by several enormous pinches of the sharp snuff of 

Beresovski, from the box which — as we have before 

m 


DOUBT AND DREAD. 


183 


hinted — ^had been found in the fob of the late Peter 
III.; and by batooning, or beating with his cane, the 
Cossack Jagouski, whom he had suddenly detected 
in the act of praying secretly before the little image 
of St. Sergius, which was his — Colonel Bernikoff’s 
— own peculiar and particular property. 

By the old laws of Muscovy, to be found worship- 
ping at an image, erected by, or the property of an- 
otlier, designing thereby to have a share in the favor 
of the saint it represented, without being at any 
expense, was punishable by a fine, to refund “ the 
owner some part of the money laid out for the said 
image ; ’’ but as the poor Cossack had not a copper 
denusca wherewith to bless himself, the Governor 
took it out of his back and shoulders (scarcely healed 
after his recent knouting), with the aid of a knotted 
walking cane. 

“ ‘ To steal and to lie,’ according to Bulharyn, a 
famous Russian writer, ‘ are the two auxiliary verbs 
of oiu- language,’ ” said the Colonel, panting with 
^exertion, as the Cossack crept away with a glance of 
subdued ferocity in his stealthy eyes ; “ we take all 
that for granted; but this slave has been stealing 
the interest of my saint for himself !” 

He ordered an extra supply of wax candles to be 
lighted before the image, and then he knelt, bowed, 
and muttered : — 

‘‘ Holy St. Sergius, heed not the prayers of that 
rascal ; he is only a vile serf, a slave, a Cossack from 


184 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


Ukraine. Thou hast been very good to me, and 
shalt be treated handsomely. Candles of the finest 
wax shall burn before thee all night. I will love 
and pray for thee, so do tliou protect and intercede 
for me, most holy Sergius ? ” 

And so he prayed till the dinner drum beat ; and 
then, muttering an oath as he tripped over his sabre, 
the old savage hobbled away, to commit at least two 
of the seven deadly sins at table. 

“No tidings yet, Carl Ivanovitch, of those trai- 
tors ! ” said Bernikoff, when he had somewhat re- 
covered his breath, after a deep draught of quass, 
the froth of which adhered to his grisly mustachio ; 
“the Captain Ylasfief, and my faithful friend Tsche- 
kin, with forty picked Cossacks, and a clever guide 

“ Nicholas Paulovitch, I presume.” 

“ The same,” continued Bernikoff, witli a fierce 
grimace on his lips and a cruel leer in his eyes, as he 
masticated a huge mouthful of green horsch with 
beef and eggs : “ the same, sir, — and what then ? ” 

“ Nothing, Excellency ; but this oukha of ster- 
let is excellent. "Well, these and the forty Cos- 
sacks ” 

“ Are scouring all the roads between this and St. 
Petersburg on one fiank, and between this and 
North Ladoga on the otlier ; so the cursed Asiatics 
cannot escape me.” 

“ Who will betray them to you ? ” asked Balgoiiie, 


DOUBT AND DREAD. 


185 


making a terrible effort to appear calm and uncon- 
cerned, as he played with liis sword knot and the 
tassels of his sash, and forgot to eat. 

“ Who ? ” exclaimed Col. Beruikoff, grinding his 
teeth, and eating very fast. “ Their own friends — 
their own dear comrades — adherents, which you 
will. Russia is full of people, yea of many nations. 
The Empress can reckon her faithful slaves by mil- 
lions ; yet, when a Russian hath his hat on his 
head, its rim contains the only friend on whom he 
can rely.” 

“ This is a severe libel on your country, surely, 
Excellency.” 

“ ’ Tis truth though ; so Basil Micro witz, Usakoff, 
and the rest, are all doomed men. No one was ever 
lost on a straight road ; thus the soldier who diverges 
from the straight line of duty must speedily find 
himself face to face with degradation and death. 
Punishment to those traitors will be swift and sure ! 
So, I only fear that the Grrand Chancellor will never 
give me the pleasure of having them under my judi- 
cious care in Schlusselburg. We have certain old 
vaults, built below the tide mark by Ivan the Terri- 
ble, for some of those people of Novgorod who 
leagued with the King of Poland. They are always 
full of fog; and I am curious to know how long an 
able-bodied prisoner might live there, or rather how 
long he would be in dying. But excuse me, Hospo- 
deen, I confess me to-morrow, and there rings the 


186 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


bell for vespers already ; ” and making many Greek 
signs of the cross and other genuflexions, Bernikoff, 
after having gorged himself at table, hurried away 
to the chapel, where Father Chrysostom officiat- 
ed. 

Charlie gladly sought the solitude afforded by the 
stockades and outworks of the fortress on the side 
towards the Lake of Ladoga. There, as elsewhere, 
was of course, a chain of sentinels ; but they did not 
interrupt his lonely communing with himself. 

By his interest in Natalie, by his deep love for 
her, and more than all, perhaps, by his recent visit 
and interview, he already felt himself ‘ art and part’ 
(to use a Scottish legal phrase), orparticeps crhninis, 
with the rash adherents of Ivan. If one of these 
deserted the cause in which they had embarked, then 
would their lurking place be at once discovered, and 
the story of his recent visit be revealed. 

He dreaded lest Bernikoff and others suspected 
his friendly interest in the family of Count Miero- 
witz, and that more might yet be learned of it; thus 
he would have experienced neither shock nor sur- 
prise, had he, at any hour, in that land of treachery 
and espionage, seen either Captain Ylasfief, Lieuten- 
ant Tschekin, or any other officer of the fortress, ad- 
vancing towards him sabre in hand, with an armed 
party, to demand his sword, to make him a prisoner, 
and march him off to the same prison wffiich already 
held the old Count and Mariolizza, the innocent be- 


Doubt and dread* 187 

trotlied of Basil, and might soon hold another, who 
was dearer, still — Natalie ! 

“ If I love her,” he would say to himself at times, 
why should I shrink from sharing all that she suf- 
fers now — all she may yet endure ? Yet it would 
be wiser to watch well for her sake, and seek to save, 
or bear her away ; but how — and where to ? ” was 
the next bewildering thought. 

And the generous Basil, the fiery and chivalrous 
Usakoff, oh that he might save them too ! He 
mourned for IJsakoff, who was the very soul of 
honor and heroism, the worthy grandson of that 
Mazeppa who, when Charles the XII. was retreat- 
ing from Pultowa, swam the Borysthenes by the 
side of the fugitive king, and of whom the latter 
said in the words of a bard : — 

Of all our band, 

Though firm of heart and strong of hand. 

In skirmish, march, or forage, none 
Can less have said or more have done 
Than thee, Mazeppa ! on the earth 
So fit a pair had never birth. 

Since Alexander’s day till now. 

As thy Bucephalus and thou ; 

All Scythia’s fame to thine should yield. 

For pricking on o’er flood and field.” 

So worthy of such an ancestor, was he, too, to 
perish ? 

This was, indeed, a miserable mood of mind in 
which to pass the nights and days of inacti^fity — of 
suspense and anxiety in which none could share, in 


188 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


that strong, guarded, and somewhat lonely fortress, 
which was washed, fis we have said, on one side bjr 
the E^eva, and on the other by the Lake of Ladoga, 
the very ripples of whose waves sounded hatefully 
in the ears of Balgonie. 

‘‘ Oh,” thought he, “ to be with IS'atalie on the 
side of a green and breezy Scottish mountain — on 
any part of the shore of free and happy Britain ! to 
be with her there in peace and security, far, far 
from this land of suspicion and ferocious despotism, 
of state intrigues and savage punishments, wLere 
every second man is the spy upon, and the betrayer 
of, his fellow.” 

“ Britain he might never see more ; and now he 
found himself vaguely speculating on the probable 
comforts and public amusement afforded by Siberia, 
and those growing cities of the sorrowing and the 
banished, Tobolsk and Irkutsk, on the banks of the 
Lower Angara. 

He feared to look much, or often, towards the 
distant Wood of the Honey Tree, lest watchful eyes 
might be upon him to gather hints therefrom ; still 
more did he fear to visit Hatalie again, lest, by do- 
ing so, he might lead to the discovery and arrest of 
all. So the days and nights of dread, of longing, 
and suspense, passed slowly after each other now. 

The barriers of rank and wealth — the wealth af- 
forded by the Count’s estates and mines, his popu- 
lous villages of serfs, and vast forests of timber — 


DOUBT AND DREAD. 


189 


had all been removed now, and ITatalie was reduced 
to a level lower even than her lover’s; vet he cursed 
the mad schemes that had brought about such a 
revolution, and tossed feverishly and sleeplessly on 
his bed, when he thought of ISTatalie Mierowna, — 
his own loving and beloved Natalie, — so delicate 
and so tender, with her white soft skin and silky 
hair, her earnest and beautiful eyes, lurking among 
stern and outlawed soldiers in yonder damp cavern 
of the rocks, upon her bed of leaves* and moss; at 
the mercy, perhaps, of any adherent of Basil’s, who, 
to save his own head, might prove a traitor to them 
all ! This dread was ever before him. 

The whole affair reminded him of some of the 
old Scottish raids, or Jacobite plots, of years long 
passed away ; and it was fated to resemble the for- 
mer more strongly in some of its features, as the 
dark sequel will show. 

The guards and sentinels at Schlusselburg were 
doubled ; the patrols were incessant by land, while 
on the lake the gun-boats of Admiral Mackenzie - 
cruised near the walls ; the canons were loaded ; the 
watch-words changed sometimes twice within four- 
and-twenty hours ; and the general state of prepara- 
tion for a sudden attack was unremitting. But time 
passed on quietly until the night of the fifteenth of 
September, when the crowning catastrophe came. 


CHAPTER XIX. 


s THE NIGHT OF THE ISTH SEPTEMBER. 

HE past day bad been unusually gloomy for 
^2/ the season. The sun had set in fiery clouds 
beyond the spires of St. Petersburg. The night 
was without a moon, and a strong east wind rolled 
the waters of the Ladoga in billows of inky hue 
against the massive walls of the fortress in foam and 
fury on one side ; while on the other, the waters of 
the Neva, swollen by recent rains, gurgled and chafed 
round the mouldy and moss-grown piers of the draw- 
bridge. 

The wind moaned with a sullen sound past the 
mouths of the cannon, and whistled drearily through 
the deep embrasures and the looph oles for musketry 
in the casemates. Thunder had been heard at times, 
but afar; Elias, as the Russians poetically phrase it, 
was driving his chariot among the stars. Lightning 
had reddened all the lake, and cast the vreird shadow 
of the castle athwart it for an instant ; and, that a 
complete and melodramatic omen of impending evil 
might not be wanting, a huge sea-bird had perched 
upon the castle clock, and forcing round the hands, 

struck midnight four hours before the proper time. 

190 ^ ^ 


THE I^IGHT OF THE 15TH OF SEPTEMBER. 191 

Since morning roll-call, Jagouski, the knouted, 
beaten, and ill-used Cossack, had been missing ; he 
had quitted the fortress on some trivial pretense and 
had not since returned ; patrols had seen nothing of 
him. Then Colonel Bernikoff was more than ever 
on the alert ; but Balgonie, who now deemed any- 
thing better than the torture of suspense, had gone 
weary and feverishly to bed, to court for a time the 
happiness of oblivion, after having spent nearly the 
entire day upon the lake with an armed boat’s crew, 
patrolling by water. 

From sleep, however, a sudden sound aroused him ; 
he looked at his watch, and saw that the hands in- 
dicated twelve o’clock, midnight. 

What had he heard ? 

In another moment the sound came again — the 
drums were beating to arms ! He heard the clamor 
of hoarse Muscovite voices in coiu-t and corridor ; 
the clanging of the castle bell ; and he saw the gleam 
of torches reddening the old black walls and towers, 
and flaring on the grated windows as they were borne 
to and fro. 

His heart was beating with wild anxiety as he 
threw on his staff uniform, belted his sabre about 
him, placed his pistols in his gh-dle, and hurried forth 
to meet — it might be to cross blades — with the only 
friends he had in Kussia ! 

As he crossed the castle-yard by torchlight, he 
could perceive that the Cossacks, clad in their short 


192 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


blue jackets, red loose breeches, short boots, and tall, 
black, woolen busbies, were falling into their ranks 
with musketoon and sabre ; and that the gunners 
were standing by their cannon with port-fires lighted : 
the latter casting a pale, ghastly, and unearthly glare 
upon the yawning embrasures, the walls of the fort- 
ress. and on their own stolid visages, which were 
pale and cadaverous as those of people usually who 
are hastily summoned from sleep in the night. 

As a staff officer who had no particular post, 
Charlie Balgonie knew that his duty attached him 
chiefiy to Bernikoff, whom he now met hurrying forth 
in uniform, with a great cocked hat thrust angrily 
over his cunning and twinkling eyes, which were 
sparkling with anger, while every hair of his grizz- 
led moustacliioes, though these were long and snaky, 
bristled with excitement. There was a dangerous 
pallor in his visage ; his square jaw looked still more 
tiger-like in contour, as his teeth were clenched ; and 
he had his sabre drawn. 

By his side were his two favorite brotlier officers, 
who — in face, form, and bearing — bore indications 
of being each, originally, a serf of the lowest, basest, 
and most unthinking kind — Captain Ylasfief, cruel 
and hollow-hearted, with his unfathomable smile ; 
and Lieutenant Tschekin, the slimy, savage, and un- 
scrupulous Muscovite. With these came several 
officers of the Cossack guard, with their elevated 
eyebrows, black mustachioes, their keen features, 


THE NIGHT OF THE 15TH OF SEPTEMBER. 19B 

the plumes and cockades in their black fur caps, and 
their glittering costumes, forming altogetlier a strik- 
ing and picturesque group, when seen by the light 
of several torches, which streamed through the deep 
and small arch, or doorway, of the keep in Mrhich 
Ivan was confined. 

The portcullis of this tower was up ; and Balgonie 
could perceive its row of lower bars, like a line of 
black fangs in an open jaw, between him and the 
outline of the lighted archway. 

“What is the matter. Colonel Bernikoff,” ask- 
ed Balgonie; “what is the cause of all this 
alarm ? ” 

“ Matter enough ! We have had alerte — the 
place seems to be invested by troops — Infantry of 
the Line, by all the devils — the head of a column — 
look for yourself, Balgonie I ” exclaimed Bernikoff, 
with an oath. 

To omit the Christian name of a person addressed, 
and that of his father, also, is a direct insult in 
Russia ; but Balgonie heeded it not then. He hur- 
ried to the curtain wall which faced the landside, 
the outer gate, and draw-bridge and then, by the 
light of a torch, ho could see that which certainly 
seemed to be the head of a column — a front rank 
of nearly fifty men, clad in the hideous uniform 
then worn by the Russian army, before it was 
altered, a few years after, by the superior taste of 
the notorious Major Semple Lisle, a Scottish adven- 


194 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


turer,* who wars well known as a lounger about St. 
James’s Park, London, in 1S04. Their coats were 
green, lined and faced with red, very tight in the 
body, with preposterously long skirts, tight breeches, 
and boots to the knees, with cocked hats, having 
long flannel flaps to cover the ears in Winter. 

By the light of the same torch, Balgonie could 
see the bayonets flxed ; and that two officers, with 
their sabres drawn, and a drummer, were in front of 
their little line. Having possession of the parole 
and countersign, which, no doubt, had been betrayed 
to them by the absent Jagouski, the whole party 
had contrived to delude the Putparooschich (sub- 
lieutenant) in charge of the outer guard, and were 
now past the first barrier, and had actually taken 
possession of the drawbridge, which they liad lowered 
across the Neva. The gate and guns of the second 
barrier were yet to be forced or passed ; and thus 
these midnight visitors were in a species of trap. 

Too well could Balgonie recognise in the two 
officers — Basil Mierowitz, wearing the familiar uni- 
form of the Regiment of Smolensko ; and IJsakoff, 
in the gay trappings of the Grenadiers of Yaliko- 
lutz ; and now, for the second time, their drummer 
beat a chamade^ or summons for a parley, but as 
yet there was no response. 

Balgonie hastened after Bernikofl and the other 

* Vide “ Life of Major J. G. Semple Lisle, written by him- 
,gelf, London, 1800. Printed for W. Stewart, 194, Piccadilly. " 


THSi NIGHT OF THE 15tH OF SEPTEMBER. 195 


officers. They hud now ascended to the chamber of 
the unfortunate Ivan, from whose presence they had 
somewhat roughly expelled the chaplain, Father 
Chrysostom. On entering, he found that the royal 
recluse had sprung from bed — inspired by natural 
alarm, on finding his chamber suddenly entered at 
midnight, and full of armed men ; hut Ivan mani- 
fested no indignation — he was too gentle, too sub- 
dued, and completely broken in spirit for that. 

His singularly beautiful face was very pale ; there 
was a strange calmness in his manner ; and whatever 
he thought or anticipated, there was more of calm 
inquiry than of fear in his tone and in the expres- 
sion of his fine soft eyes. Over his night-dress he 
had thrown a Tobe-de-chairibre of fine scarlet cloth 
edged with white ermine ; and in this attme, with 
his long hair and delicate features, so chastened in 
expression by long solitude and complete seclusion 
from the outer world, he seemed more like a tall 
handsome woman, than a young man of three and 
twenty years. 

“ What is this you tell me, Colonel BernikofP,” he 
was asking, as Balgonie entered ; “my unhappy life 
threatened, say you ? ’’ 

“ Even so,” said Bernikoff hoarsely, while avert- 
ing his stealthy eyes, from the young man’s open 
and earnest face ; “ even so, Ivan Antonovitch ; but, 
your death will not be of our seeking.” 

“ Whose then, whose then ? ” 


196 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


“ Your friends.” 

“ Oh, what dreadful paradox is this ? ” asked the 
Prince calmly; ‘‘must I die, even as Demetrius 
died?” 

“ Yes,” replied the other hoarsely. 

“ And wherefore ? ” 

“ There are those without the gates who seek 
you, and you must not fall alive into their hands,” 
said Captain Ylasfief sternly, as he felt the point of 
his sabre vdth a finger. 

“ Alas ! I do not understand who can come to 
seek me ! ” replied the poor Prince, shuddering 
now, while an expression of horror began to spread 
over his fine face, — a horror gathered from the 
fierce and relentless aspect he read in the visages 
of those around him, — and he withdrew a pace or 
so towards his bed, saying, in a touching voice : — 

“ Ah, do not leave me, good Colonel BernikofP, 
or at least give me a sword — a sword ” 

“ Fool — child — dolt! thou with a sword, and for 
what purpose ? ” thundered Bernikoff, as he sought 
to lash himself into the requisite pitch of fury ; 
“ for what purpose, I say ? ” 

“ That I may defend myself.” 

“ ’Tis needless,” said Tschekin, with a cold smile; 
“ we shall take every care of you.” 

“ Oh, Carl Ivanovitch Balgonie, my friend, my 
good friend ! you I can trust — you, I can command 
— come hither, and remain by my side,” said the 


THE OF THE 16tH OF SEJPTEMBBR. 197 

Prince, in an imploring accent, as a solemn fore- 
bodiug came upon him when he saw the sabres 
stealthily drawn from their scabbards on every side, 
and even the terrible Nicholas Paulovitch drawing 
near, dagger in hand, with his long lock of hair, his 
scrowling front, and a cruel expression, the very 
lust of blood, in his deep set stony eyes. “ Carl, 
Carl,” cried Ivan ; your hand ! ” 

“ Captain Balgonie — he here ! ” roared Bernikoff, 
with one of his terrible maledictions. 

“ Oh Excellency ! ” implored Balgonie, scarcely 
knowing what he should ask or urge. 

“ Begone, sir, to the barrier gate, and keep the 
guard there to their duty — begone, sir, I command 
you, on your allegiance to the Empress ! ” 

To refuse or linger were alike impossible, though 
a wild cry of entreaty escaped the lips of the young 
Prince, who sprang forward, but was thrust rough- 
ly back tow^ards his couch by many hands and many 
levelled weapons. 

The sword of Damocles, which had hung over 
his unhappy head so long, was about to descend at 
last ! 

Balgonie, his heart swollen almost to bursting 
wdth shame, rage, and grief, rushed down the stair 
of the keep ; but at the foot, and just as he passed 
where the old Chaplain Chrysostom was saying de- 
voutly on his knees the prayers for the dying^ he 
heard a shrill and protracted cry of agony ring 


198 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


through the vaulted tower — a cry that made his 
blood run cold ! 

. Humanity, generosity, and all his own good im- 
pulses would have drawn him back to the side, and, 
if possible, to the aid, of Ivan ; but the force of dis- 
cipline, and a knowledge of his own utter power- 
lessness, made him pause : for he was but one man 
— a young officer — a foreigner, too, opposed to a 
whole garrison of ferocious and unscrupulous sol- 
diers. 

When, from the inner barrier gate, he looked up 
to the window of Ivan’s room, he saw that the 
lights had been extinguished and all was darkness 
now. 


CHAPTEE XX. 

MORNING OF THE 16tH SEPTEMBER. 

W HEN Bernikoff appeared with his group of 
officers, Charlie Balgonie perceived that 
there were spots of blood upon his long, white 
leather gauntlets, that his sabre blade was broken 
off within six inches of the hilt, and that a terrible 
expression of ferocity clouded his features and those 
of all around him, the glare of the uplifted torches 
now paling as the light of day stole in, adding to 
the sinister significance of their faces. 

At that moment the drummer of the summoners 
beat a cJiamade for the third time, and Bernikoff, 
advancing to the klinket, or wicket, in the palisades 
of the second inner gate, opened it, and, with a great 
sternness of manner, demanded what they required. 

‘‘ The release of His Imperial Majesty Ivan IV.,” 
replied Basil Mierowitz,in a firm voice, while courte- 
ously saluting Bernikoff, in recognition of his supe- 
rior rank. 

“ If I refuse ” 

You do so at your own peril,” replied Basil, 
as sternly and as proudly as if, instead of a few 
discontented deserters and enthusiasts, the whole 
armies of Eussia were at his back. 


199 


200 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


“You cannot be mad enough, Basil Mierowitz, to 
think of assaulting us ? ” 

“ That may or not be, Excellency, according to 
circumstances,” was the reply. 

“ What troops are these under your orders ? ” 

“A guard of honour for the Emperor, if you 
peacefully comply — the first portion of an investing 
force, if you refuse,” replied Mierowitz ; but a sin- 
ister gleam of triumph flashed in the malicious ej^es 
of Bernikoff, who gathered more of his real weak- 
ness from this evasive reply, than the rash young 
noble intended. 

“ Listen, Colonel Bernikoff,” he continued, while 
drawing from his breast a long paper of official as- 
pect, to which several green and scarlet seals were 
attached : “ Her Majesty Catharine II. — for a time 
of all the Bussias — having come to the conclusion 
of resigning the imperial crown (convinced at last 
that she has no claim thereto), and of replacing it 
on the head of the Emperor Ivan (son of Anthony 
ULrjc, Duke of Wolfenbuttel), whom she now feels 
herself compelled to acknowledge as her lawful 
sovereign, though basely deposed in infancy by her 
predecessors, the Empress Elizabeth, and the Em- 
peror Peter III. ; therefore she hereby commands 
you. Colonel Bernikoif, Governor of her Castle of 
Schlusselburg, to set the Prince at liberty, with all 
speed and honour.” 

For a document and summons of this artful and 


MORNING OF THE 16tH OF SEPTEMBER. 201 

remarkable nature, Bernikoff was altogether unpre- 
pared. For a moment he grew deadly pale, but 
for a moment only, and glanced at the startled faces 
of those around him. Had he been too precipitate 
in bloodshed ? 

“ Where is Her Majesty, just now ? ” he asked. 

“ In the palace of the Czars, at Novgorod.” 

“ Was Novgorod so empty of all the great nobles 
and officers of Bussia, that a document of such a 
nature was entrusted to a mere Lieutenant of In- 
fantry — a deserter from Livonia ? ” said Bernikoff, 
with sudden rage. ‘‘ ’Tis an imposture — a forgery • 
there is but one God in Heaven — one monarch on 
earth, the Empress Catharine ; and you, Mierowitz, 
and all who league with you, are but base dogs and 
traitors ! ” 

“Forward!” cried Basil, brandishing his sabre; 
“ storm the gate — bayonet all who oppose us ! ” 

“Long live Ivan Antonovitch — long live the Em- 
peror!” exclaimed his soldiers, rushing forward. 
But the klinket in the palisades was at once closed, 
and secured against them by an enormous transverse 
beam of wood ; and though a confused volley of mus- 
ketry was exchanged between them and the main 
guard, no one was struck, save Bernikoff, who stag- 
gered back into the arms of Ylasfief, having been 
bayoneted in the breast by the deserter Jagouski, 
who drove his weapon between the palisades, nearly 
finishing what Basil had begun by the blow of a 


202 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


musket, but which crushed the Coloners hat and 
nearly fractured his skull. 

Ah ! dogs and Asiatics, you have struck me ! ” 
shouted Bernikoff, whose voice was hoarse with rage 
and pain. “Dost know the penalty of wounding 
an officer — of striking a soldier who wears a deco- 
ration ? ” 

“ Accursed Tartar, I neither know nor care. I 
revenge my brother’s death at Zorndorf, my own 
wrongs, and the mdrder of Peter III. ! ” replied the 
exulting Cossack, with a bitter laugh. 

“May my right hand wither and my tongue 
cleave to the roof of my mouth, when most I need 
them both, if I have not a terrible vengeance for 
all this work ! ” cried Bernikoff. “ Ylasfief, Tsche- 
kin, show them their Prince ! ” 

While the undaunted Basil and his friend Usa- 
koff, with their soldiers, proceeded to wheel round 
a cannon of the outworks, a 32-pounder, for the 
purpose of blowing open the klinket of the inner 
barrier; and while Balgonie, a silent but excited 
and sick-hearted spectator of the whole affair, 
lingered close by, heedless whether the round-shot 
and grape, with which they were charging the gun, 
came this way, or not, — a window in the first story 
of the keep was dashed open, and while every torch 
and every eye were uplifted to the place, a terrible 
spectacle, which hushed all into momentary silence, 
was exhibited. 


MORNEJ^O OF THE 16tH OF SEPTEMBER. 203 


f 


It was the dead body of the young and handsome 
Ivan, suspended by the neck, at the end of a rope, 
stripped even of his night-dress, cold and white as 
the marble of Paros, and gashed with ten gaping 
wounds ; for, as we are told in the newspapers of 
the period, “ the unfortunate prince had struggled 
some time for his life, and even broke the Gover- 
nor’s sword in the conflict ; but assistance was 
called for, and another blpody assassin (Ylasfief) ap- 
peared, who finished the horrid work.” 

An exclamation of dismay and grief escaped 
Balgonie, on beholding this appalling spectacle; 
the weird and ghastly horror of which was enhanced 
by the uncertain light in which it was exhibited, 
and which imparted a wavering and almost life-like 
action to the corpse, as with its long hair lioating, 
head and arms pendent, it swayed to and fro in the 
morning wiiid against the castle wall. 

‘^Hospodi pornilui ! TIospodi pomilui ! cried 
Basil Mierowitz, covering his face with his hands? 
and permitting the musket with which he had armed 
himself to fall to the ground with a clash, which, 
together with his most mournful exclamation, alone 
broke the silence. 

‘Behold,’ said Bernikoff, in cruel triumph, while 
blasphemously using the words of Ezekiel — ‘behold, 
I take away from thee the desire of thine eyes with a 
stroke !’ Glory to God and to the Empress ! This 


*hord have jnerc^ upou us ! 


204 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


is your Emperor — now let him head your troops. 
Doubtless he will make a fine figure on the Im- 
perial throne.” 

“ Oh ! Bernikoff,” exclaimed Basil, you are like 
Judas, as we may see him at the Kazan church — 
one hand on the mouth denoting treachery, and the 
other on a bag of money.” 

“ Thou liest. Lieutenant ! my fingers know more 
of the grip of steel than of gold,” said the other 
furiously, as he hurled the hilt of his broken sabre 
at the speaker. 

So — so — this has been your work and decision ? ” 

“ Yes — how do you like it ? ” was the mocking 
reply. 

‘‘ Thou art a cruel judge ; but remember the law 
of Peter the Great ” 

“ Which makes the judge answerable for his de- 
cision ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Then shall I content me, traitor, and be answer- 
able for my decision as well as for its execution. I 
have done my duty to the Czarina.” 

“ You have done a deed for which hell must blush 
and angels weep,” was the forcible reply of Miero- 
witz, who seemed so overcome by grief and horror, 
as to lose all self-possession ; for he now ordered his 
men to disperse to the woods — to seek safety in 
flight ; and then calmly taking off his sword-belt 
and sash, he threw them on the ground saying ; — 


MORNING OF THE 16tH OF SEPTEMBER. 205 

“ Since my Imperial master is dead, further re- 
sistance would be vain in me.” 

He was almost immediately afterwards struck to 
the earth, and made prisoner by Lieutenant Tschekin, 
who, with a party of dismounted Cossacks, had stolen 
through the casemates and galleries to a postern open- 
ing on the rear of the drawbridge, and these, after 
firing a confused volley with their pistols and mus- 
ketoons, fell with their sharp crooked sabres upon 
the now thoroughly disheartened adherents of Mi- 
erowitz. Lieutenant Usakoff and Jagouski alone 
made any vigorous resistance, resolving not to be 
taken alive. 

Fighting desperately, almost back to back, the 
former armed with the sabre of Mazeppa, and the 
latter with a musket, and both bleeding from many 
wounds, they were driven through the outer barrier 
towards the town. On the pathway Jagouski stum- 
bled over a comrade, and was taken ; but Apollo 
Usakoff, with a shout in which triumph and despair 
were mingled, leaped into the Neva, the waters of 
which swept him away, and he was seen no more by 
his pursuers. 

When Tschekin’s Cossacks joined in the mtle^ 
with the fugitives, Balgonie sprang through the 
klinket, sword in hand, resolved to succour his friend 
at all hazards ; and fortunately arrived just in time 
to save lum (when struck down and trod under foot) 
from the bulky giant Nicholas Paulo vitch, who, with 


206 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


a clubbed musket, was about to give him a blow 
that must inevitably have proved fatal. 

Paulovitch he ran through the heart — or at least 
the place where his heart might be supposed to have 
been — and spurning him off the blade with his foot, 
hurled the snorting ruffian to the ground, and raised 
his friend, with the assistance of a soldier and Lieu- 
tenant Tschekin. 

“ Made prisoner, and by you too, Carl ! ” said 
Basil, reproachfully and in a low voice, for he was 
faint with wounds and bruises. 

“ By me, but to save you.” 

“ Seek rather to save Natalie, if you can,” he 
whispered ; ‘‘-she is, she is — ” 

‘‘Where, where said Balgonie, impetuously 
and imploringly. 

But there was no reply. Basil had fainted, and 
was borne into the Castle of Schlusselburg, a pris- 
oner of State. 

Balgonie never saw the face of his friend again ! 

So ended for a time, a scheme, the importance of 
which was only equalled by its bold recklessness — 
the scheme of two subaltern officers to revolutionize 
the vast empire of Russia, and to subvert the firm 
dominion of Catharine II., one of the most power- 
ful and popular, though licentious, monarchs that 
ever sat on the barbarous throne of the Czars ; and 
such was the terrible sequel to the Secret Dispatch 
of Balgonie. 


Morning of the i6TH of September. 207 

Day had completely broken when he was sum- 
moned by BernikofP. Shuddering as he passed 
through the court of the Castle and under the very 
window where the corpse was yet swaying mourn- 
fully to and fro in the morning breeze that swept 
from the broad waters of the vast lake, whose rip- 
ples were shining like gold in the first beams of the 
autumnal sun, Charlie sought the presence of this 
detestable personage, the thunder of whose wrath 
he feared was about to descend upon himself. 

He found the Colonel in his shirt sleeves, and 
almost covered with blood, which was flowing from 
a wound in his breast and another on the head, from 
whence it was trickling to the ends of his long and 
snaky grey mustacheos. To both of these cuts the 
barber was about to apply dressings, while the pa- 
tient solaced himself l)y scheming out some dread- 
ful punishment for Jagouski, who, with several 
others, had fallen into his gentle hands, and by ut- 
tering deep oaths, and imbibing deep draughts from a 
great wooden bowl of quass, dashed with fiery vodka. 

Balgonie, whose thoughts ran chiefly upon how to 
discover and succour N atalie, was roused to attention 
by Bernikoff saying grimly: — 

Carl Ivanovitch Balgonie, for aiding in the cap- 
ture of the rebel Mierowitz, I thank you ; suspicions 
I had, but they are gone. You are now, perhaps, 
to rejoin the Begiment of Smolensko, and shall 
bear a dispatch from me to Lieutenant-General 


208 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


Weymarn and Lieutenant-Colonel Caschkin (who 
are both in St. Petersburg), relating the affair of the 
last twelve hours. Ylastief shall prepare it, and I 
shall sign it. Place a feather in the seal, lest the 
Captain lingers as he did at Louga ! Here, Carl 
Ivanovitch, taste the quass ; ’tis the trisna of Ivan 
the Unknown person ! ” 

There was something so horrible in this levity 
and impiety to the Cossacks, that even they ex- 
changed uneasy glances ; for the trisna at funeral 
feasts is a mixture of rum, beer, and wine, and is an 
ancient Sclavonian beverage. When it is handed 
round, all stand up uncovered, the clergy recite a 
solemn prayer, and at its close the trisna is drunk 
to the healtli of the departed Christian soul ; so 
Balgonie shuddered, as he thought of the gashed 
and dishonored corpse that swung by the neck with- 
out the castle wall. 

This emotion did not escape the fierce eyes of 
Bernikoff, though his wounds were most severe, and 
his mind was wandering. 

“ Nay, look not at me thus, Scot,” said the 
genuine old Eussian fatalist ; “ God wdlled it that 
Prince Ivan should be put in my charge ; and the 
devil, together with my duty to the Empress, in- 
spired me to destroy him. What is done, is done, 
and is the will of God ; and you know, or ought to 
know, our Muscovite proverb — the Czar is high, and 
God is everywhere I ” 


MORNING OF THE 16TH OF SEPTEMliER. 209 


“ Three times has this old reprobate mentioned 
that terrible Name, and each time bowing his sinful 
head I ” thought Charlie, with disgust and wonder. 

Hah ! ” resumed Bernikoff, pursuing his own 
thoughts, and clenching his teeth in rage and pain, 
“ did that suckling of a Lieutenant think to deceive 
me — I, who have been forty years in the Russian 
army, and have to deal with the most cunning 
scoundrels between the Black Sea and the Baltic ! 
Jagouski, too. I’ll fill his mouth with gunpowder, 
put a fuse between his teeth, and blow his head off. 
By St. Sergius, I will ! But, holy Saint, alleviate 
these pangs, by ever so little, and this night six 
pounds of the finest wax shall burn before thee.” 
He gnashed his teeth with pain, and added, Be 
ready to ride in an hour. Captain ; till then, leave 
me.” 


CHAPTEK XXL 


UNDERGROUND. 

HE Empress’s court of Secret Chancery soon 
^2/ decided on the fate of Basil Mierowitz ; the 
Count, his father, and his cousin Mariolizza, who 
had been passive, though suspected in the matter, 
had their cases taken into future consideration, so 
they were kept close prisoners while their proper- 
ties and possessions were given up to pillage and 
military execution. Basil was condemned to be 
broken alive upon the wheel; but the Empress, 
who had a particular tenderness for handsome men, 
“ mitigated his punishment to the less severe one 
of being beheaded.” 

A brief paragraph in the Loiidon Gazette of the 
23rd October records this brave fellow’s death, 
just fourteen days after his rash affaii- at Schlussel- 
burg : 

“ M. Mierowitz, in pursuance of his sentence, was 
publicly beheaded on Wednesday last; he behaved 
at his execution, as he had done throughout the 
whole transaction, with the greatest resignation. 
Six of the soldiers and under-officers who were en- 
gaged with him ran the gantelope the same day ; 

810 


UNDERGROUND 


211 


they were so severely whipped that it is said three 
of them are since dead. Many more are to be pun- 
ished. One, TJsakoff, a Lieutenant in the Kegi- 
ment of Welikolutz {sic) who was privy to the de- 
sign, was accidentally drowned.” 

Notwithstanding his rank and years, old Count 
Mierowitz was retained in a dungeon among a 
number of miserable Kussian rogues and Polish 
prisoners, clad in filthy sheepskin shoubahs, many 
of them being afflicted with the terrible disease 
known as plica polonica^ or matted hair, which 
hung over their necks in clotted lumps, every tube 
being swollen and dilated with globules of blood. 

The lower vaults of Schlusselburg were those 
built by Ivan the Terrible, for the reception of a 
few of the revolters of Novgorod, after he had put 
twenty-five thousand of her citizens to the sword. 
They were such prisons as — let us hope — are no 
longer in use, even in Russia ; although the London 
press has asserted that, until lately, exactly such 
ouUiettes or dungeons were in active operation, and 
never without tenants, under the royal rule of the 
deposed Fr.ancis II., and prior to the remodelling 
of Italy by Victor Emmanuel. 

They were like the frightful cells of the Bastile, 
which Victor Hugo has described in “ Notre Dame f 
those of the Inquisition at Goa or Madrid, or of 
old castles of the middle ages ; but apart from the 
liappily departed horrors of such places, ev^n Eng- 


212 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


lish jails have been little better than living graves 
within the memory of many now alive ; for one of 
the greatest glories of modern civilization, in all 
countries, have been the amelioration of prisons 
and their government, and the substitution of mercy 
and protection in their general economy for that 
irresponsible despotism and wanton cruelty which 
have formed such ample materials for the romancer 
and novelist to excite compassion and even dismay. 

Yet it is exactly such a place — a prison of the 
middle ages — a rival to that Chillon to which 
Byron’s genius has given a greater name than ever 
its terrors won it — we are now about to describe : 
One of the lower vaults of Schlusselburg, a den, the 
floor of which was below the rocks whereon the 
seals of Ladoga basked in the sunshine, and which 
was consequently liable to be flooded during those 
inundations that, at certain seasons, overflow all the 
country for a great way north, so that no crops 
will grow save upon the eminences. 

Yaulted with stone, it was nearly square, and 
measm’ed twelve feet each way, with a floor that 
sloped down at one end, having been unevenly 
hewn out when the rock was pierced ; and from a 
portion of this rock sprang the solid arch of granite 
blocks which formed the roof. A narrow slit, six 
inches broad by twelve liigh, and having even in 
that small space a thick iron bar, admitted to the 
interior a feeble ray of light. This slit was partly 


UNDERaROUND. 


213 


built of stone, but its sill was the living rock of 
Schlusselburg. It opened towards the lake, but 
gave no prospect save the clouds, for it was high 
up in the wall; yet the melancholy cries of the 
waterfowl and of the seabirds, which often came 
up the Neva from the Baltic, were heard through 
it at times. 

The prisoner, when seated on the stone bench 
which formed a bed or seat alternately, could only 
see the changing hues of the sky and patches of 
cloud, and know by the darkness which gradually 
obscured this mere shot-hole that daj" was passing 
away, and that another night, chill, dark, dreary, 
and hopeless, was at hand. 

As the floor sloped down some twelve inches or 
more, the lower end was always full of water, into 
which the slime that gathered on the vault of the 
arch fell at intervals with a regular splash that, to 
the silent and apparently forgotten prisoner, be- 
came maddening in its monotony of sound, by day 
and night, by morning and evening, by dawn and 
sunset. Then, as the tides rose and fell, or as the 
waters of the vast inland lake of Ladoga are af- 
fected by the Baltic stopping the downward flow 
of the Neva, or by rains flooding the many tribu- 
taries that join them, so did this dark pool in the 
dungeon rise and fall, wlien the current oozed 
through secret and unknown channels or crannies 
in the granite rocks. 


S}14 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 

It was in this vault, or one of those adjoining — * 
such a den as that in which Dante placed his De- 
mon — that the betrayed wife of Count Orloff, the 
beautiful daughter of the Empress Elizabeth, was 
drowned, ten years after the date of this history, 
when the waters of the Neva rose ten feet ; and, as 
they subsided, bore her body to the Gulf of Fin- 
land. 

No one could live very long in such a place — 
low, damp, cold, and horrible. And well did Berni- 
koif know this, when, in the blind transports of 
rage and agony resulting from his double wounds, 
he barbarously consigned Natalie Mierowna to such 
a place — ay, even Natalie the soft and delicate, the 
high-bred and tenderly-nurtured daugher of Count 
Mierowitz ; and she had now been in the under- 
ground vault for three days and nights, — seventy- 
two hours, — which to her had resembled a horrible 
and protracted nightmare. 

She was ignorant, as yet, of her brother’s execu- 
tion, a week before. Betrayed by one of their most 
trusted adherents, as the price of his own liberty, 
she and Katinka had been taken. Of the fate of 
the latter she knew nothing; a mere Polisli waiting- 
maid, a pretty soubrette, she had too probably be- 
come the lawful prey of the Cossacks, whom Nata- 
lie had last seen in the forest, with terrible signifi- 
cance rattling their dice on the kettle-drum head. 

For herself, the poor girl only knew that she 


UNDERGROUND. 


215 


was placed there to await the pleasure of her Em- 
press and the Grand Chancellor. 

Hope was dead, completely, in her heart ; and 
though the desire to live was strong, her former life 
seemed all a dream ; or something that had happened 
long, long ago ! 

Crouching on a damp pallet that lay on the couch 
of stone, her hair dishevelled, her dress more than 
ever torn, discolored, and disordered, her snowy 
arms and hands stripped of every ornament and 
ring, her tender feet well-nigh shoeless, her eyes 
half dossed and surrounded by dark inflamed circles, 
her cheeks sunk and haggard, — it would be difficult 
to recognise in her the once beautiful and brilliant 
Hatalie, whose coquetry had excited the ready jeal- 
ousy of Catharine in that fatal Mazurka ; the Nat- 
alie of the imperial salons at Moscow, at Oranien- 
baum, or the palace of Tsarsky Selo ; or the Natalie 
of that princely old chateau near the Louga — the 
proud, bright-eyed, and beautiful girl whom Charlie 
Balgonie had loved, and worshipped as a god- 
^ dess. 

As she crouched in a species of stupor beside a 
wooden bowl of stale water and a mouldy loaf of 
black bread, there seemed to be no breath in her 
tender nostrils, no sound in those little ears over 
which the black hair rolled in unheeded masses — no 
sound save the monotonous plash of the dropping 
slime. She was pale as white marl)el, — cold as 


216 


THE SEOKET DISPATCH. 


death, — a prey to utter confusion rather than pro- 
found grief. There were times wlien she felt and 
thought and knew of nothing ; but there were others 
when all the past — the memory of her ruined house, 
her shattered love, her slaughtered friends, their 
fatal project, and her lost position in society — 
brought a cruel and keen pang to her heart, and 
made her writhe and start and wring her hands, but 
not weep ; for she had not a tear left ; and her hard 
dry eyeballs were the only warm part of her shud- 
dering frame. 

When she did rouse herself to calm reflection and 
the realities of her position, thought well-nigh drove 
her mad. 

Her old father — his sturdy figure, his venerable 
beard and white eyebrows, his silver hair queued by ^ 
a simple ribbon, his quaint old-fashioned costume of 
the first Peter’s time, rose vividly before her ; and 
with a gush of memory came all his peculiarities of 
disposition, his w^armth of heart and temper, his 
kindness and irritability, his pride of race and fam- 
ily. Where w^ere all these now ? 

Her lover, too — his voice, and eyes, and gentle 
manner came next, to add to her pangs— for him, too, 
must she relinquish for ever ; no shelter was there 
now for her save the cold grave, which was perhaps 
to receive them all ! Basil, Usakoff, and Mariolizza 
— alas ! terrible though her own sufferings, she little 
knew those to which the fairer beauty and more 


UNDERGROUND. 


217 


unwary tongue of Mariolizza had subjected that un- 
l^appy girl. 

The excellent taste, the polished education, and 
high accomplishments of Natalie, which were so far 
superior to those of most ladies of her own rank and 
country then, gave a greater poignancy to the hor- 
rors of reality and imagination ; yet imagination 
could supply no horror but what was real, and stern- 
ly so. 

Their princely old dwelling amid the pine forests 
— never more would she see its dome of polished 
copper shining in the sun, or the wooded domain 
that stretched for uncounted versts around it ; or her 
father’s patrimonial village, nestling by the Longa, 
which bore his rafts of timber to the sea, and by 
night reflected the glare of those furnaces which 
were another source of vast wealth, and the means 
of procuring a thousand luxuries. 

Better would it have been, had she and they and 
all succumbed to Catharine’s iron rule, than sought 
the freedom of Ivan lY.; but it was too late — too 
late, now ! 

W as it all a dream from which she must awaken ? 
Strange it was, that as weariness, sleep, or a stupor 
stole over her, scraps of songs, frivolous ones es- 
pecially, airs from operas, and so forth, occurred to 
her drowsy ear, as if her brain was turning ; and to 
these the filtering plash and the sound of the rising 
waves and wind without seemed to mark a cadence. 


218 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


Suddenly a scream escaped her ; she was in total 
darkness. Amid her sleep or stupor, a fourth night 
had come on — a night of storm, too, for she heard 
the roar of the autumn rain, as it descended like a 
vast sheet upon the lake without. 

Cold and slimy things had often crossed her slen- 
der ankles, making her shriek and shudder; but 
now, she became sensible that her feet were com- 
pletely immersed in water ; that the wind was bel- 
lowing without and rolling the waves against the 
rocks ; and that the current of the lake was flooding 
the floor of her vault, and rising fast within it. 

It rose with appalling rapidity ; and now^ the ter- 
ror of a dreadful death made Natalie utter a succes- 
sion of piercing shrieks, mingled with prayers to 
heaven. But her cries were unheard ; for the same 
cold, icy tide that flooded her cell, filled all the cor- 
ridors by which it and others on the same floor were 
approached. 

Rapidly it rose, this dark, silent, and terrible tide 
— rapidly and wdthout a sound. 

She sprang upon her stone couch, but already the 
pallet was floated away. Up yet rose the invad- 
ing w^ater, and it was soon nearly to her waist ; and 
gasping and shuddering cries were mingled wdth her 
prayers. A little more, and the narrow slit through 
which she could hear the bellowing wind and see 
the black clouds careering past one red and fiery 
northern star — the last gleam of life and of the 


UNDERGROUND. 


210 


outer world — would vanish from her eyes, as she 
perished in that miserable tomb ; even as the Prin- 
cess Orloff and many others have done, helpless and 
unheeded in their dying agony — drowned miserably, 
like the prison rats that swam around them. 

In the last energies of her despair, she made her 
way to the enormously thick door which closed this 
trap of stone, and, applying her lips to the joints» 
shrieked loudly again and again for succor, and beat 
wildly and fruitlessly with her tender hands upon its 
massive planks and iron bolts. 

Her brain seemed bursting, for she was suffocat- 
ing as the air lessened. She thought she saw a red 
light shining through the crannies of the doorway ; 
but w^hether this were fancy or reality, it was im- 
possible to say — as a faintness came over her, and 
she sank down choking and drowning in the flood 
that rose within the walls and agains the door of 
the prison. 


OHAPTEE XXIL 


OVER THEIR WINE. 

^CfEAYY and sad was the heart of Charlie Bal- 
•I*/ gonie when, on the evening of the 16th Sep- 
tember, that which was subsequent to the episode at 
Schlusselburg, he saw the domes and towers of St. 
Petersburg glittering in gold and bronze, in green 
and fiery or fantastic colours, amid the rich glow of 
a ruddy sunset ; and where rising from the haze 
of the vast city, the polished cupola of St. Isaac’s 
Cathedral, and the slender spire of the Admiralty, 
like a needle of fiame, seemed to fioat in mid air. 

As he entered the first guarded barrier, he met a 
party of Lancers riding at a trot, their tall fur caps 
having scarlet kalpecs and large plumes, their 
lances, each with a longbannerole of the same color 
waving in the wind. They escorted a covered 
kabitka, or wagon, and were led by the Count de 
Balmain, a Scottish officer, who, in after years, 
stormed Kafia, in the Crimea. 

“ Whither go you. Count he asked. 

“ For Schlusselburg — the place of sorrow.” 

“ With a prisoner, of course ?” 

‘‘Yes, I regret to say, with the niece of Count 

aao 


OVER THEIR WINE. 


221 


Mierowitz, with Mademoiselle Mariolizza. She is 
to be confined under a warrant from the Grand 
Chancellor — poor girl !” 

Sadder and heavier grew the honest heart of 
Balgonie, as the escort and its hearse-like carriage 
passed on ; and, as he looked after it, the fair merry 
face, the full and voluptuous figure, the gay manner 
and remarkable esprit of the betrothed of 

poor Basil, as he had last seen her at Louga, came 
back vividly to memory now. 

Balgonie was at St. Petersburg when Mierowitz 
was executed, and when other horrors followed. 
Moreover, he was closely and repeatedly interrogated 
by the Grand Chancellor, the Privy Councellor, the 
Count Panim, by Count Orlofi (the present lover of 
the Empress), and by General Weymarn, as to all he 
knew and had seen of the conspirators — so closely, 
that nothing surprised him so much as to find that 
no suspicion was attached to himself. But being a 
soldier of fortune, who possessed nothing in the 
world but Ids sword and his epaulettes, he was not 
worth suspecting by the Imperial Government. 

Ere long, the name of Natalie came before the 
Secret Chancery, as a prisoner in Schlusselburg; 
and, like the rest, she was tried and condemned in 
her absence, undefended and unheard ; and sent- 
enced, too, amid the solitude of her prison. 

To Balgonie the charm of life seemed to have 
passed away; and, during the week or two that 


222 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


followed his return to St. Petersburg, dreary, wea- 
ry, and unmeaning, indeed, seemed the routine of 
his duties as aide-de-camp at the vast parades, the 
brilliant receptions, the courts-martial, and other 
public affairs to which he followed his chef^ Gen- 
eral Weymarn, at the palacies of Tsarsky Selo, or 
Oranienbaum, and elsewhere, while ignorant of the 
fate of Natalie — while the very life of her he loved 
hung in the balance. 

When compared with their fate, how happy 
seemed those lovers, who, though separated for a 
period, could look confidently forward through the 
long succession of hours, of days and nights, of 
weeks, and months, or even years, and reckon with 
certainty on the time of reunion ! With him and 
Natalie, time stretched into a length that seemed 
interminable : theii’ future had no background ; 
their separation was one without hope. 

Charlie, in his desperation, applied to the Mar- 
quis de Bausset and to Sir. George Macartney, 
then the Ambassadors from France and Britain; 
and both received his verbal prayers — he dared not 
write on such a subject — for mercy to the Count’s 
family; but they were unheeded and the Ministers 
replied only by bows, grimaces, and shrugs of their 
diplomatic shoulders. Their interference was im- 
possible — quite ; and, unfortunately, his old patron. 
Admiral Thomas Mackenzie, was with the fleet in 
the Black Sea. 


OVER THEIR WINE. 


223 


The suspicions excited against his Hegiment and 
the Glenadiers of Yalikolutz, might procure the 
banishment of both; he feared it in the form of 
service in Siberia, or at the Crimean lines of 
Perecop. In either case, unless Weymarn stood 
his friend, how could he hope to succour Natalie ! 

At every tea-house, hotel, and cafe, his uniform 
of the Smolensko Infantry, and the knowledge that 
he was the staff officer who had been in Schlussel- 
burg, and who brought the fiiist tidings of the late 
affair, made him an object of special interest ; but 
the subject was alike a perilous and painful one. 
Walls have many ears in Kussia ; so he was com- 
pelled to be silent, or discreet, even to rudeness, 
though the following declaration, which was issued 
by the Empress, might have allayed his fears : — 

“ We, Catharine the Second, by the Grace of 
God, Empress and Sovereign of all the Russias, 
&c., &c., make known to our Regiment of Smolen- 
sko Infantr}" that, according to the eq^uity which we 
exert towards our faithful subjects, we cannot re- 
present to ourselves, without profound grief, how 
much that regiment must be afflicted, for having 
among its officers a wretch in the person of Miero- 
witz ; nevertheless, as the crime of one man cannot 
affect those who had no part in it, and that, besides, 
we know the bravery with which the regiment has 
distinguished itself upon all occasions, its attach- 


224 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


ment to strict discipline, and its exactness in the 
military duty of our empire ; therefore we grant it, 
through our imperial good-will, the same assurances 
of protection which it has in all times deserved. In 
consequence, we forbid all and every one, to re- 
proach or upbraid the said regiment concerning the 
treason of Mierowitz, under pain of incurring our 
indignation, and drawing on themselves the effects 
of our just resentment. 

{Signed) “ Catharine.” 

Hope seemed to revive a little after the issue of 
this conciliatory oukaz ; but it was speedily dashed, 
when Balgonie, on returning from Cronstadt, 
wdiither he had been sent by General Weymarn, 
suddenly met Captain Ylasfief face to face, near the 
palace of the favorite Lanskoi. 

This personage he would have avoided like a toad 
or a leper; but from him only might he learn some- 
thing of h(3r he loved in Schlusselburg, that hateful 
place to which the Captain was returning ; so, over- 
coming or rather concealing, his repugnance, he ad- 
journed with him to a cafe, and ordered wine. 

I dare say you have heard,” said Ylashef. with 
a strange leer in his eyes, as he tossed his hat and 
sabre on the sofa and deposited his jack-booted 
limbs on another, “ how the estates of the Count 
and those of Usakoff have been sold or gifted 
away; pillaged and ravaged by Lanskoi with a 


OVEE THEIR WINE. 


225 


party of Tchernemoski Cossacks; and that the 
plunder has been stored up in Schlusselburg ? ” 

“Something of all this I have heard,” replied 
Balgonie, when the waiter had filled their glasses 
and withdrawn, “ and — and — but you have there 
two ladies of the Count’s family ? ” 

“ True — Mademoiselle Mariolizza, who was en- 
gaged to Mierowitz, and the Count’s draughter : one 
beautifully fair, the other black-haired like a Pole. 
Poor girls!” he continued, while leisurely filling 
the large china bowl of a tasselled pipe, which sus- 
piciously resembled one Charlie had often seen the 
old Count smoking, “ I remember them both in 
happier and brighter times ; but those who play 
with fire will, you know, be burned. The sentences 
on all have been found, recorded, and, in two in- 
stances, executed ; and they are truly terrible ! ” 

“ Executed — the sentence ! ” replied Balgonie, in 
a faint voice. 

“Yes; you have been four days at Cronstadt : 
well, in those four days many things have been 
done — a light; thank you. The Count is now 
travelling towards Tobolsk under an escort of Bal- 
main’s Lancers. There he will have to hunt the 
ermine, cultivate asafoetida, or dig in the mines, 
with a collar at his neck, for the remainder of his 
days ; but for the ladies of his family, a more severe 
punishment was reserved ; ah ! he is a stern fellow, 
old Panim ! ” 


226 


THE SECRET DlSPAtCE. 


“ How — what ? Ylasfief, you jest ? ” 

“ ’Tis no jest : we don’t jest on such matters in 
Russia,” replied Ylasfief, who was too thorough a 
roue — too “ used up,” in fact — to care for what any 
woman might suffer or undergo ; for every human 
emotion and sympathy were dead in this man now. 

“ What new horrors am I to hear ? ” exclaimed 
Balgonie, with passionate vehemence, as he dashed 
his heavy Turkish sabre on the table. 

Ylasfief smiled sourly, and his cunning eyes 
twinkled. 

“ You are a Scot, like Balmain,” said he disdain- 
fully ; ‘ ^and as the Turks—r those accursed unbelievers 
— say, but truly, ‘ Those who have never seen the 
w^orld think it is all like their father’s house.’ Pass 
the bottle — ’tis Cracow wine this, and not worth 
four ducats the flask. In short, the — the two ladies 
of the Count’s family, in the wildness of their grief, 
— Mariolizza especially, — on hearing of the death 
of Mierowitz, permitted their tongues to run riot, 
and to say such things of Her Imperial Majesty and 
some of her favorites, such as Count Orloff, Lanskoi, 
the Grenadier, and so forth, as no woman would 
pardon, you understand ; so they are to be given in 
succession to le maitre d^entre les hjaules — the 
master of the slioulders,” added Ylasfief, with a 
species of laugh at the strange expression wliich he 
saw gathering in Balgonie’s face. 

“ Explain, I implore you, explain ! ” asked the 


OVER THEIR WINE. 


227 


latter, with quivering lips, as he set down a crystal 
goblet of Hungarian wine untasted on the table. 

Mademoiselle Mariolizza — but you don’t drink 
fairly, Ivanovitch — has received six blows of the 
knout. The torturer is a new man, and mangled 
her cruelly. She has had her tongue cut out, and 
her forehead branded with the executioner’s mark,* 
and slie goes to Siberia as soon as she recovers ; but 
she will never reach it alive, even if she escapes the 
fever that has now seized her; for as the whole 
family has been degraded, — declared infamous and 
without protection, — being tongueless, she* will be- 
come the prey of the Cossacks en route. Once be- 
yond the Volga, we nevQr know what happens. The 
Count’s daughter will undergo exactly similar pun- 
ishment; and, if she survives it, they will be merci- 
fully permitted to travel together : and there ends 
the House of Mierowitz, which boasts of its descent 
from Huric of Kiev — Ruric the Varagian of Old 
Ladoga ! ” 

With wonderful coolness of manner, over his wine 
and pipe, almost with an occasional jest, the cruel 
and snakelike Ylasfief — who, as a parvenu of the 
foundling hospital (the son of a goat,) hated tlie 
hereditary aristocracy — detailed these matters ; and 
Halgonie felt as if a black cloud enveloped him. 
He heard the Captain talking ; but his mind and 


The latter punishment is abolished now. 


228 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


thoughts were far, far away; and after a time he 
found himself alone. 

Ylasfief had mounted and ridden off ; and me- 
chanically, like an automaton, Balgonie had bidden 
him adieu at the portico of the cafe, and returned to 
finish his wine, as one in a waking dream : nor was 
it until the bell of St. Isaac’s tolled midnight, when 
the lights were burned low, the fire in the peitchka 
had died away, the decanters were empty, and he 
saw a drowsy waiter hovering near him, that he rose 
to depart ; for to him, now, all places seemed alike. 

In the street a shower of tears revived him ; and 
he wept unseen, like a great boy, while grinding his 
teetli and twisting his mustaches like a furious and 
desperate man. Russia, her laws, her rulers, her 
very air, he loathed and detested. But what was he 
to do ? — which way was he to turn ? — was he to 
permit these horrors, and live ? 

He had been present when the Regiment of Smo- 
lensko guarded the punishment of Madame Lapou- 
chin, one of the most beautiful women of the Im- 
perial Court, where she shone like a planet, was 
loved, admired, and more than once fought for. An 
alleged conspiracy brought her to the knout in all 
her nude loveliness, in the light of open day ; and 
Charlie remembered that sickening scene, before the 
eyes of assembled thousands, and how, as the Abbe 
d’Anterroche records, “ in a few moments all the 
skin of her tender back was cut away in small slips, 


OVER THEIR WINE. 


229 


most of which remained hanging on her shift. Her 
tongue was cut out, immediately after ; and she was 
banished into Siberia.” 

Oh Hatalie, Natalie ! ” he could but repeat, 
while he wrung his hands ; and thus the dawn of day 
found him. 

After mature consideration of his position, his 
powerlessness, and the difficulties that beset him, 
with the horrors impending over Natalie, poor Char- 
lie Balgonie felt maddened, crushed, and heart- 
broken. Could he see her perish without a struggle, 
an effort, however reckless, fruitless, and futile, on 
her behalf, even if he pistoled the executioner? 
Could he know that she too, probably, would die, in 
agony and mutilation, a horrible and ignominious 
death, — she, so gentle, delicate, and pure, — and 
would he survive it ? 

“ Hearts will break in this life,” says a recent 
writer ; it is the nature of them ; but if God wills 
it, and it were possible, it is honester, braver, and 
nobler to live than to die.” Most true ; but to live 
is to hope. Balgonie vaguely, but sternly, resolved 
that he would do something, or — like the hero of 
a melodrama — “ die in the attempt ; ” but being a 
poor, bewildered, loving young fellow, he could in 
no way practically see what that something might be. 

Let not the reader flatter himself or herself that 
their own beloved country was entirely free from 
legal barbarism at this time ; for in. the very year 


230 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


of Ivan’s murder, — the fourth year of the reign of 
His Majesty George III., — a woman was hurned at 
the stake in Ilchester for poisoning her husband. 
During the reign of his son, more than one head 
was chopped off for treason ; and women were 
flogged by the tap of drum, for petty theft, at the 
Market Cross of Edinburgh. Neither need the su- 
perstitions of the poor Muscovites excite surprise, 
when we And, in 1867, Highlanders in Scotland 
putting clay figures into running streams to bring 
comsumption and wasting upon their enemies ; 
burying a living cock (as the Pagan sacrificed to 
Hermes) to cure epilepsy ; and a woman in Somer- 
setshire* cooking toads in a pan, exactly as the 
“ black and midnight hags ” did in the days of 
Macbeth, for the amiable purpose of bewitching her 
neighbors. So truly does the world reproduce it- 
self, in spite of its boasted civilization. 

The next day was not far advanced when Bal- 
gonie was summoned by General Weymarn, whose 
staff he had been resolving to quit ; but for what 
purpose, or whether to go, he knew not. With 
something of a shudder, he beheld the Stepniak — 
the comrade and confederate of the late Nicholas 
Paulovitch — ^leaving the General’s quarters. 

Save that he wore scarlet livery of his new 
trade, — torture and death, — he was unchanged, and 


We.stexii Gazette, September, 1867. 


OVER THEIR WINE. 


231 


was the same hideous and ill-visaged giant — with 
square shoulders, enormous beard, mouse-like eyes, 
hair shorn off straight across the beetle brows, and 
the pine-apple shaped head — whom Balgonie had 
seen in the hut where the wretched Podatchkine 
perished. He was now public executioner of St. 
Petersburg under his felon hands had poor Miero- 
witz and Mariolizza been, and ere long would Ha- 
talie be ! 

Weymarn was a grave and stern, yet not unkind, 
old soldier ; and on preceiving that his young aide- 
de-camp looked pale, he spoke to him with unusual 
kindness, and added ; — 

“ I am sorry to say, that I have a new duty of 
importance for you to perform.” 

“ Thanks, General ; any excitement is better than 
— than idleness.” 

“ True. You will have to ride to Schlusselburg 
with an escort, composed of six Cossacks of the 
Imperial Guard, and bring hither in a kabitka the 
sum of eighty thousand roubles, which are there in 
canvass bags, sealed. They have been levied on 
the estates of the Count Mierowitz. You will re- 
ceive them from the officer commanding there ; give 
a signed receipt, and deliver them into the Imperial 
Treasury.” 

Balgonie bowed in silence. 

The General, who, of course, knew well the cor- 
rupt venality of the Bussian service, added : — • 


282 


THE) SECEET DlSPAtCH. 


“ If the sum is brought entire to the Treasury, 
Carl Ivanovitch, a reasonable gratuity will, of 
course, be paid you. 

“ Exceller.cy, I require none for doing my duty, 
either in this or any other matter,” replied Balgonie 
coldly, even haughtily. 

“ As you please, sir, — as you please. Some 
among us might be less particular,” said the old 
General, tugging his grisly mustaches. ‘‘ And 
stay ; by-the-bye, there is a prisoner in Schlussel- 
burg, whose sentence is to be executed to-morrow, 
in presence of the assembled troops and people 
here ” 

Balgonie thought of but one prisoner there ; and 
an icy chill came over him, as Weymarn said — 

“ With the escort and the kabitka. Captain, you 
will, at the same time, bring the culprit here.” 

‘‘ And — and this pris — on — oner. Excellency ?” 
faltered the poor fellow. 

“Is Jagouski, the Cossack, who so severely 
wounded Colonel Bernikoff when in the execution 
of his duty.” 

Charlie breathed more freely. 

“ An order will be necessary for you — a special 
order : since the affair of that wretched young fel 
low Mierowitz, we cannot be too particular ; so take 
this : — 

“ ‘ To the officer commanding in Schlusselburg. 

“‘You are hereby directed to deliver to 


OYER THEIR WINE. 


233 


Captain Carl Ivanovitcli Balgonie, of the Smolensko 
Regiment, the prisoner who is to be executed to 

morrow. ^ Weymarn, Lieutenant GeneraU 

For the delivery of the money, here is a sep- 
arate order from the Treasurer. — Adieu.” 


CHAPTER XXIII. 


WILL HE SUCCEED ? 

S Balgonie left the presence of General Wey- 
marn, a sudden light broke through the 
darkness of his mind — an unlooked-for thought ; and 
hope suddenly inspired him, and a prayer of thanks 
to Heaven rose to his lips therefore. Ho prisoner 
was actually designated by name in the written 
order of the General ! 

Thus, in lieu of the Cossack Jagouski, he would 
demand that Hatalie Mierowna be given into his 
custody ; and with her he would escape, quit Russia 
and the service of the Empress at all risks. 

He had no papers — no leave of absence, or pass- 
port; but, as the epaulette is an all-powerful badge 
in Russia, his uniform^and his sabre would be pass- 
ports enough. For the rest, he must trust to his 
own love and courage, and to his knowledge of the 
country. But then there was the Cossack escort — 
how was he to rid himself of it ? The same kind 
Heaven which favored and inspired him now, would 
not fail to do so, he hoped, when the crisis came. 

While his best horse was being saddled and ac- 

countred, and even when the escort was at the door, 
234 


WILL HE SUCCEED? 


235 


he consulted, till the last moment, the map of 
Russia, and also that of Finland, which was not 
ceded to the latter till forty-four years after ; and 
he made notes of his proposed route. Escape 
by sea, by the Lake of Ladoga, or by the shore of 
the Gulf, were alike impossible. 

' There was no way for it but to ride, at all 
hazards, toward the frontier of Finland, or the 
shores of the Lake of Saima ; they would there be 
safe, beyond pursuit — safe among the hospitable 
Swedes, who are always hostile to the grasping and 
aggressive Russians. And so for nearly an hour he 
sat, compass in hand, calculating the chances and 
measuring the distances, while his brain grew giddy, 
and his heart was sick, with mingled hope, anxiety, 
and a love that was full of terror and compassion. 

At last he saw his way clearly, as he thought, 
through Yiborg, from Schlusselburg, hortli-west- 
ward, in safety. He put all tlie money he pos- 
sessed — not much certainly — about his person in 
gold ; tilled his cartridge-box with ammunition, and 
^ buckled on his sabre. 

“By this time to-morrow,’’ he muttered, as he 
glanced at his watch “ the game will have been won 
or — lost ! ” 

He then mounted, with a resolute heart, and set 
forth, having with him a light kabitka, or covered 
wagon, drawn by a single horse, and attended by 
his escort — six Malo-Russian Cossacks, who wore 


236 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


the uniform of Hussars, and who were all stout, 
athletic, and noble-looking fellows, whose clean- 
limbed, active, and hardy little horses, unmatched 
for strength and speed, made Balgonie speculate 
painfully and anxiously on his slender chance of 
outstripping them, if pursued. 

It was considerably past the noon of an October 
day — a dark, lowering, and ominous day — when 
they set out for Schlusselburg, and erelong the rain 
began to fall heavily, soaking the Hussar finery of 
the Cossacks of the Guard; but Charlie Balgonie 
rode silently on at their head, heedless of the blind- 
torrents and the bellowing wind ; though he little 
knew that as the darkness increased, and the early 
night drew on, that the waters of the lake and 
river were rising fast, and that a peril, of which he 
had no conception, already menaced the existence 
of Natalie. 

But her voice seemed to be ever whispering in 
his ear — 

“ Carl, Carl — my beloved Carl, come to my aid 
— save me — help me, if you love me ! ” 

When they were mid-way to Schlusselburg, the 
kabitka driver, who was either sleepy or tipsy, fell 
awkwardly from his seat, and broke his right arm. 
What was to be done now ? 

Ho Cossack of the Guard would condescend to 
supply his place, and for more than an hour the 
party remained halted in a desolate spot, near a 


WILL THEY Succeed? 


237 


pine wood, while looking about to capture the 
first peasant, serf, or civilian of any kind, whom 
they might meet, and press him into the service, as 
a temporary whip, in the employ of the Empress. 

A skulking and somewhat sulky boor, in a fur 
cap and canvas caftan, leather leggings and bark 
shoes, who had been smoking his pipe under a great 
tree, was, ere long, discovered, dragged forward, 
and, with sundry oaths and threats, commanded to 
mount the shaft and act as driver, which he did, 
with a reluctance he was at no pains to conceal. 

Knowing how necessary it was to control or to 
conciliate this new acquisition, Balgonie asked him 
a few questions, with sternness, but yet with polite- 
ness. 

The serf was a singularly handsome young man, 
with eagle-like eyes, and an aquiline nose, that was 
almost hooked ; he was without his mustasche, which 
seemed to have been recently shaved off; but he 
had a curly red beard, with a complexion of well- 
nigh Asiatic darkness. 

“ Trust me, dear Carl Ivanovitch,” said he, in a 
low and impressive voice, that was strangely familiar 
to Balgonie. “ My disguise, I find is complete indeed, 
when it deceives even you; but speak in French.” 

“ Your disguise — yours? ” 

“ Yes, — I am Apollo Usakoff,” he added through 
his teeth. 

“ Heaven be blessed for this new omen of sue- 


^38 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


cess ? ” exclaimed Balgonie, in French. “And you 
were not drowned ? ” 

“ No ; I swam down the Neva, under water, escap- 
ing many a bullet — got ashore, and reached the old 
place in the wood, where Olga, the Gipsy, stained 
my face, trimmed and dyed my beard, as you see. 
She is quite an artist, that girl ! Even Mariolizza 
would not know me now.” 

Balgonie sighed as tlie poor fellow spoke. Muti- 
lated and disfigured as she was now, would he have 
known her f He evidently knew nothing of the 
barbarities to which she had been subjected, so Bal- 
gonie resolved, mercifully, to keep* him in ignor- 
ance ; and they proceeded at an easy pace together, 
he keeping his horse close by the shaft of the kab- 
itka, on which the pretended peasant rode ; and, as 
they spoke in French, a language unknown to their 
ignorant and half-savage escort, Usakoff, in referring 
to the late event and its failure, poured out all the 
bitterness, the hate, and fury of his soul, against the 
Government, the Councillors, and the rule of the 
Empress ; and, of course, entered with fervor into 
the scheme of an escape with Natalie. But still 
their ultimate plans were undecided, w’hen they saw 
the red flash of the evening gun, as it pealed from 
Schlusselburg, amid the murky haze of a wet and 
stormy sunset ; and erelong they saw the lights that 
glittered at times from amid the massive towers and 
black outline of that old castle (the scene of so many 


Will they succeed? 


^39 


terrors, sufferings, and atrocities) streaming and 
wavering on the turbulent waters of the lake, and 
the wet slime of the sluices and ditches. 

When, all dripping and jaded, the escort halted 
and dismounted under the castle arch, Balgonie found 
that some changes were taking place in the execu- 
tive of the fortress. 

Bernikoff, whose wounds had been inflamed to 
gangrene, bj passion, rage, and vodka, was at that 
moment actually on his death-bed, with Father Chry- 
sostom kneeling by his side. The old sinner was in 
all the agonies and terrors of reviewing his past life 
on one hand, and anticipating the coming change on 
the other. Many pounds of perfumed wax candles 
were flaming now round the efligy of St. Sergius, 
whom, in weak and querulous accents, he implored 
for intercession, alternately with tlie Chaplain, to 
whose cassock he clung tenaciously, and to whom he 
was mingling threats of punishment, if he permitted 
him to fare ill in the other world, or omitted masses 
for his soul’s repose. And that superstition and 
absurdity might not be wanting amid this solemn 
but repulsive scene, from which Balgonie hurried 
away with more disgust than pity, Bernikoff was 
dying in the habit of a friar ^ with cowl, cord, beads, 
and sandals, hoping even on his death-bed, as Ivan 
the Terrible hoped, when similarly arrayed and dis- 
guised, to cheat the devil, if that dread personage 
came for his sinful soul. 


240 


THE SECKET DISPATCH. 


The cowl and other paraphernalia he had obtained 
from the Chamberlain, or wardrobe-keeper, of the 
Troitza monastery near the Longa — a cowl that had 
laid on the mummy of the uncorrupted saint in the 
silver-shrine ; — and almost with his last breath, he 
threatened Father Chrysostom with a drum-head 
court-martial for venturing to hint that this attempt 
to mask his past life was vain without true repent- 
ance. 

Leaving this scene, Balgonie presented the order 
of General Weymarn and that of the Treasurer, to 
Captain Ylasfief, who was now in command, and to 
whom he stated that “ the prisoner referred to was 
Mademoiselle Natalie Mierowna.” 

“ Carl Ivanovitch,” said the Captain, you can- 
not think of leaving to-night in such a storm of 
wind and rain ? ” 

“ I’ve seen worse in Silesia,” said Balgonie, look- 
ing to the locks of his pistols. 

“ What of that ? ” 

“ But the verbal order of the General was most 
peremptory.” 

“ Ah ! — and you have brought a kabitka for the 
money ? ” 

“ A kabitka for the prisoner, also — so be quick, 
Captain.” 

“ ’Tis a large sum in roubles,” mused the other, 

“ I am in haste to be gone ! — the prisoner — ^you 
hear me sir ? ” said Balgonie, impatiently. 


WILL THEY SUCCEED? 


241 


‘‘ Bj all the devils, you seem more anxious about 
the prisoner than the treasure !” responded Vlasfief 
sulkily, as he knocked the ashes from his pipe, but 
still delayed to move. 

“ You have my orders — I come in the name of 
the Empress — let there be no delay. Captain 
Ylasfief,” was the curt reply. 

‘‘Bring in two Cossacks of the escort; the 
money is here in seventy bags, each containing a 
thousand roubles.” 

“Excuse me, but the order of the Imperial 
Treasiu’er says expressly eighty sealed bags of a 
thousand each,” said Balgonie, trembling with 
anxiety, yet compelled to appear to take an interest 
when he really felt none. 

“ Ten thousand are missing,” said Ylashef, 
leisurely, refilling his pipe. 

“ Missing!” 

“ Yes. Suppose,” he added in a whisper, “sup- 
pose we divide the lost sum between us, and offer a 
thousand to the Treasurer.” 

“Impossible, sir!” said Balgonie, with a fiery 
and impatient manner. 

“ Well, well — there are the other ten sealed 
bags,” added Captain Ylasfief, with a dark and 
stealthy frown of greed and hate, as the Cossacks 
tossed the whole among the straw of the kabitka : 
“ it matters little ; but I hope you may not find the 
road heset^ and so lose the whole.” 


242 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


“ To be forewarned, sir, is to be forearmed,” said 
Balgonie, touching his pistols ; for he quite under- 
stood the treachery implied, and only trembled lest 
it might mar his dearest plans. “ And now' sir, 
for my prisoner.” 

“ If she be not drowned ; for the lower vaults 
are apt to be flooded on such a night as this, said 
Vlasflef spitefully. 

Writhing under the keen glances of this low born 
Muscovite, Belgonie felt that all now depended up- 
on his outward and assumed bearing of coolness and 
carelessness. Night favored him in this, and his 
face was almost concealed. Could any one then 
have read his heart, as he, Usakofl, two Cossacks, 
and two soldiers of the mainguard made their way 
down, down through dark and slimy passages and 
stairs, till they were foot deep and then knee deep 
in the water that flooded the low and humid corridors, 
off which were the arched doors of numerous cells 
— corridors where spiders spun their webs, rats were 
swimming, and terrified bats flew wildly to and fro ! 

Erelong they reached the door, through the cran- 
nies of which despairing cries and painful gaspings 
had been heard ; and after unlocking, forced it open 
by main strength. 

“ A great flood of water poured from the aper- 
ture amid the darkness,” says the Utrecht Gazette^ 
‘‘ and with it came the body of the poor lady, who 
'W^s well nigh drowned,” 


WILL THEY SUCCEED? 


243 


So the red light seen by Natalie was no fancy, 
but that of the lamp which was borne by one of 
those who came just in time to save her from the 
same terrible death by which the Princess OrlofE 
perished. 

Lest all might be perilled by a recognition, Bal- 
gonie w^as compelled to retire and leave her in the 
Chaplain’s hands till she was restored to conscious- 
ness, to warmth, and till she w^as habited anew; 
and he passed three dreadful hours of doubt and 
anxiety, while pacing to and fro in the cold and 
gloomy arch^vays of the fortress, and having to con- 
ceal his face when she was brought forth and sup- 
ported into the kabitka, to wLich two Jresh horses 
were now traced. Usakoff sprang, on the shaft and 
flourished his whip ; then the cossacks and Balgonie 
put spurs to their chargers, and clattered over the 
wet drawbridge, just as the passing bell for the de- 
parture of Bernikofl’s tortured spirit rang ominously 
and solemnly on the stormy gusts of that black and 
gloomy night. 

Balgonie, instead of proceeding by the way he 
had come, avoided the towm of Schlusselburg, and 
wheeled ofl to the right, committing himself partly 
to the guidance of IJsakofP, and quite in ignorance 
that, about an horn* before, Ylasflef, who could by 
no means let so many roubles escape without paying 
toll, had beset two of the roads by chosen followers 
of his own — men whom he hoped might pass for 


244 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


some of the adherents of the late Prince Ivan, res- 
cuing the daughter of the exiled Count Mierowitz. 

A strange incident occurred before the interment 
of old Bernikoff, who had a pompous military 
funeral. The bottom of his grave was found to be 
on fire ! 

A Scottish doctor (named Bogerson, we believe) 
at Catharine’s Court attempted to explain this phe- 
nomenon, as resulting from a species of ironstone 
which was saturated with the phosphorus supplied 
by the bones of old interments, and which had been 
ignited by the friction of the sexton’s shovel ; but 
the superstitious Bussians took a very different and 
much more diabolical view of the matter, and laughed 
to scorn the learned opinion of the Scottish pundit. 


CHAPTEK XXIY. 


CONCLUSION. 

horses were tolerably refreshed by the 
halt at Schlusselburg, and the nags which 
drew the light kabitka had been quite unused, so the 
whole party pushed on at a brisk pace by the road 
towards the frontiers of Finland — the Cossacks of 
the escort, whatever they thought, making neither 
remark nor inquiry, as they trusted obediently and 
implicitly to the officer who led them ; but the dark- 
ness of the October morning, the deep and muddy, 
stony and rough, nature of the roads, and the vio- 
lence of the storm, erelong began to have a severe 
effect upon their cattle, and, to the great satisfaction 
of Balgonie, two of the troopers gradually dropped 
to the rear, and were seen no more. 

Now the Corporal of the Cossacks ventured to 
hint, that “ perhaps they were not pursuing the way 
they had come, as the lights in St. Isaac’s Cathedral 
must have been visible long ago ; ” but Balgonie re- 
plied, haughtily and briefly, that he had special 
orders.” 

Then the Corporal urged a sliort halt, as the 
horses were sinking ; but again Balgonie replied, 
245 


246 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


that he “ had peculiar orders, and must push on.” 

After passing a little village with a windmill, 
several miles from the shore of the Lake of Ladoga, 
the road dipped down into a dark hollow, between 
impending crags of granite, the grey faces of which 
were already beginning to brighten in the first light 
of the lagging October sun. The rain and wind 
were over ; the hollow way was full of rolling and 
perplexing mist ; but TJsakofi affirmed with confi- 
dence that he knew the country well. 

Out of the grey vapor, from both sides of the 
path, there flashed, redly and luridly, five or six 
muskets ! One bullet struck white splinters from 
the kabitka, eliciting a shriek from its occupant ; 
another whistled through the mane of Charlie’s 
horse ; and a third killed one of the Cossacks, who 
died without a groan, for it passed fairly through 
his temples. 

The way was beset by armed men, whose numbers 
and disposition, the dim light, or, rather, the dark- 
ness and the mist, alike served to conceal. 

“ Make way, in the name of the Empress ! ” cried 
Balgonie, dashing forward, with his sabre drawn; 
“ Nay, I command you, on your peril and allegi- 
ance ! ” he added, as the threatening words of Ylas- 
fief occurred to him ; and, to his astonishment and 
dismay, he saw that personage actually appear, 
mounted and armed, wearing a regimental hat and 
plume, with a kind of dark green tunic, or patrol 


CONCLUSION. 


247 


jacket; richly braided with gold, and trimmed heavily 
with black fur. His party, who seemed all on foot, 
were clad like peasants, but were armed with mus- 
kets, which they were rapidly casting about and re- 
loading. 

“ Halt, in the name of the Empress — halt, I 
command you ! for this is not. the way to St. 
Petersburg, whether the prisoner and treasure 
were to be conveyed*. Treason ! treason ! ” shouted 
the Staff-Captain Vlasfief. 

Balgonie fired a pistol at his head ; but the 
Captain’s horse reared, or was compelled to do so 
by bit and spur, for the bullet pierced its throat ; 
and with an oath, Ylasfief fell on tlie pathway, en- 
tangled in the stirrups as the animal sunk under 
him. 

The three remaining Cossacks, who were some- 
what bewildered by the attack, by the appearance 
of Ylasfief, whom they knew, and whose confident 
bearing confirmed certain gathering suspicions that 
something was wrong as to their route, now drew 
then’ sabres, aimed several blows at Usakoff’s head, 
and endeavored to cut the reins of his horse, or 
stab it between the shafts, as he lashed the animal 
almost to racing speed, and the light kabitka, jolted, 
rolled, and bounded along the rough road behind it. 

By another pistol-shot Balgonie rid himself of 
the Cossack Corporal, whose bridle arm he broke, 
while facing about and galloping in rear of the 


248 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


kabitka ; and now with wild hallooes, the entire 
party of armed men followed it on foot, with all 
speed, up a steep slope, over which the path wound. 

Usakoff ground his teeth, for he was without 
weapons, and passive in the flying combat; but, 
being fertile in expedients, he tore open a bag of 
roubles, and scattered them on the upland road with 
a ready and reckless hand. 

The bright silver coins proved too exciting for 
the cupidity of the pursuers, who loitered to pick 
them up, tumbling, scrambling, rising and falling 
over each other, with shouts, curses, and maledic- 
tions, their flre-arms sometimes exploding the while; 
and so the whole were speedily left behind, as the 
kabitka, guarded now by Balgonie alone, was driven 
along a lonely and unfrequented road, that led to 
the little town of Pomphela. 

Thanks, dear Usakoff — thanks for your presence 
of mind,” said Balgonie ; I had forgot all about 
those roubles.” 

“ Silver has achieved for us what neither our 
lead or steel would have done !” 

‘‘ But, to lighten the kabitka, let us throw out 
those remaining bags — this perilous lumber, the 
intended recapture of which has nearly cost us our 
lives — honour — all, at the hands of Ylasflef.” 

“ IN'ay, nay, nevw ! Lumber, say you ? The 
roubles are Natalie’s — hers and mine — hers and 
yours, when you wed her ; they have saved us once, 


CONCLUSION. 


249 


and may do so again,” replied Usakoff cheerfully, 
as the sun burst forth in his clear October splen- 
dor, and they saw the dome-shaped cupola of the 
Church of Pomphela rising with a golden gleam 
from amid the white morning haze. 

There Balgonie’s uniform and a display of gold 
and roubles operated powerfully on the Postmaster 
who, without asking for passports or other papers, 
at once, and in the name of the Empress, supplied 
them with fresh horses for the frontier, towards 
which, after procuring some proper nourishment and 
restoratives for Natalie, they pushed on without a 
moment of unnecessary delay. 

‘‘ Ah,” thought Balgonie, with a shudder and a 
prayer ; ‘‘ had Jagouski’s name not been omitted in 
that order of Weymarn, where would she have been 
now % ” 

Pale with sorrow and long suffering, her face 
was still beautiful, though sorely wasted ; the deep 
thoughtful eyes had yet a wealth — a world of 
tenderness in their liquid depths ; and the long 
dark hair was thick, soft, and wavy as ever, as it 
fell in masses behind the small, compact, and finely- 
formed head. 

Yet, withal, her wretchedness had been extreme, 
having been so suddenly and rudely rent from all 
those habits of luxury and tender nurture, which 
had become, as it were, a second nature ; and often, 
very often, had it occurred to her in her later 


250 


THE SECRET DISPATCH. 


misery of soul “ that the repose of the grave is 
sweet, and that there cometh after death a levelling 
and making even of things which would at last 
cure all her evils.” 

But all was changed now ; and, as she laid her 
head on Charlie’s breast, she felt content — almost 
happy ; and the horrors that hung over her family 
alone prevented her, as yet, from being completely 
so. 

No trace of pursuers were behind them now, 
though their flight must by this time have been 
known both in the capital and at Schlusselburg. 
But in those days there were neither railroads nor 
electric telegraphs ; so, riding on more leisurely, 
Balgonie changed horses again near Viborg, and 
ei’elong the great Lake of Saima appeared before 
them, with the distant hills of Swedish Finland be- 
yond its friendly waters. 

A boat was procured there ; the kabitka was 
abandoned; and with a shout of joy, ITsakoff as- 
sisted the Finnish boatman to hoist the great lug- 
sail to catch the breeze of a balmy and beautiful 
evening, as they bade a long farewell to Bussia and 
all its terrors. 

In a quaint old Church of Finland, by the eastern 
shore of the Lake of Saima, and in view of its lit- 
tle archipelago of granite isles, — a lonely little fane, 
buried amid groves of plum and cherry trees, built 
of wood and painted red, with a little bell jang- 


CONCLUSION. 


261 


ling in its humble belfry, — Charlie Balgonie and 
bis fugitive bride were united by the. old Curate, 
with the consent of the Lutheran Bishop of Heinola; 
and there a thousand roubles spent among the poor 
spread in the primitive district a happiness, the 
tradition of which is still remembered with many a 
grateful exaggeration. 

After this, poor Usakoff, finding himself perhaps, 
as a third person, rather in the way, left them to 
become a soldier of fortune ; and he is supposed to 
have perished in one of the Polish struggles for 
freedom ; at least, they heard of him no more, after 
their final journey to Scotland. 

Two years before these events, it would appear 
that Charlie’s uncle, the godly and upright ” 
Gamaliel Balgonie, merchant, magistrate, and elder, 
had departed in peace to sin no more, leaving the 
lands and possessions of Balgonie unimpaired ; and 
a long tombstone in that famous city of the dead, 
the Howff of Dundee, records at length all tlie 
virtues which his contemporaries in general and the 
Presbytery in particular believed him to possess. 

So Carl Ivanovitch became once more Balgonie 
of that Ilk ; andthe roubles of Natalie added many 
a turret and many an acre to his patrimonial dwell- 
ing in beautiful Strathearn. 


L’ENYOL— ILLUSTEATIVE NOTE. 


Jo convince the reader how nearly History has 
been followed in the previous pages, we shall 
take the liberty of inserting the subsequent mani- 
festo, published with reference to the death of Ivan 

lY. 


“ By the Grace of God, we, Catharine the Second, 
Empress and Autocratrice of all the Eussias, 
&c., Ac., to all whom these presents may con- 
cern : 

When by the divine will, and in compliance with 
the unanimous desires of our faithful subjects, we 
ascended the throne of Eussia, we were not ignorant 
that Ivan, son of Anthony, Prince of Brunswick- 
Wolfenbuttel, and of the Princess Anne of Meck- 
lenburgh was still alive. This Prince, as is well 
known, was immediately after his birth unlawfullj^ 
declared heir to the imperial crown ; by the 
decrees of Providence, he was soon after irrevoca- 
bly excluded from that high dignity, and the sceptre 
was placed in the hands of the lawful heiress, Eliza- 
beth (daughter of Peter the Great), our beloved 
aunt of glorious memory. 

252 


l’envoi. 


253 


“ After we ^ had ascended the throne, and offered 
up to Heaven our just thanksgiving, the first object 
that employed our thoughts, in consequence of that 
humanity which is so natural to us^ was the unhappy 
situation of that Prince, who was dethroned by di- 
vine Providence^ and had been unfortunate since his 
birth .... 

‘‘ To prevent, therefore, ill-intentioned persons 
from giving him any trouble, or from making use 
of his name to disturb the public tranquility, we 
gave him a guard, and placed about his person two 
officers, in whose fidelity and integrity we could con- 
fide. These were Captain Ylasfief and Lieutenant 
Tschekin, who, by their long military services, de- 
served a suitable recompense, and a station in which 
they might pass quietly the remainder of their days. 
They were accordingly charged with the care of the 
Prince, and were strictly enjoined to let none ap- 
proach him. Yet, all these precautions were not 
sufficient.^ .... 

A Pat-par ooschick (a sub-lieutenant) of the 
Hegiment of Smolensko, a native of the Ukraine, 
Basil Mierowitz, (grandson of the first rebel that fol- 
lowed Mazzeppa), took it into his head to make use 
of this Prince, to advance his fortune at all events, 
without being restrained by a consideration of the 
bloody scene that such an attempt might occasion. 
In order to execute this detestable, dangerous, and 
desperate project, he contrived, during our absence 


254 


l’envoi. 


in Livonia, to be upon guard in the fortress of 
Schlusselburg, where the guard is relieved every 
eight days ; and the 15tli of last month, about two 
in the morning, he called out the main guard, formed 
it in line, and ordered the soldiers ’to load with ball. 
Bernikoff, Governor of the fortress, came out of his 
apartment, and asked Mierowitz the reason of the 
disturbance, but received no other answer from 
this rebel than a blow with the butt-end of his 
musket 

“ Captain Ylaslief and Lieutenant Tschekin seeing 
that it was impossible to resist such a superior force, 
and considering the unhappy consequences that must 
ensue from the deliverance of the person who was 
committed to their care, after deliberating together, 
took the only step that they thought proper, to 
maintain public tranquillity, which was to cut short 
the days of the unfortunate Ivan. Mierowitz, on 
seeing the dead body of the Prince, was so con- 
founded by a sight he so little expected, that he 
acknowledged his temerity and guilt, and discovered 
his repentance to the troops, whom, about an hour 
before, he had seduced from their duty, and rendered 
the accomplices of his crime. 

“ Then it was that the two officers who had nipped 
this rebellion in the bud, joined tlie Governor of the 
fortress in securing this rebel, and bringing back the 
soldiers to their duty. They also sent to our Privy 
Councillor Count Panin, under whose orders they 


l’ewvoi. 


255 


acted^ a relation of this event, which, though un- 
happy, has nevertheless, binder the protection of 
Heaven^ prevented still greater calamities. This 
Senator despatched immediately (Colonel) 

Caschkin, with sufficient instructions to maintain 
tranquillity on the spot (or where the assassination ; 
was committed), and sent us, at the same time, a 
. circumstantial account of the whole affair. In con- 
sequence of this, we ordered Lieutenant General 
Weymarn, of the division of St. Petersburg, to take 
the necessary information on the spot ; and the con- 
fession of the villain himself, who has acknowledged 
his crime. 

‘‘ Sensible of its enormity and consequences with 
regard to the peace of our country, we have re- 
ferred the whole affair to the consideration of our 
Senate, which we have ordered, jointly with the 
Synod, to invite the three first classes and the Presi- 
dents of all the Colleges to hear the verbal relation 
'of General Weymarn, who has takentheproperin- 
formations, to pronounce sentence in consequence 
thereof, and to present it to us, for confirmation of 
the same. ‘‘ Catharine.’’ 

By a singular species of sophistry, the guilt of 
Ivan’s death is thus, by a subsequent document, 
transferred to Basil Mierowitz : — 

“ As the violent death of the unfortunate Prince 
Ivan was the immediate consequence of the des- 


256 


L ENVOI. 


perate attempt of Mierowitz, so must this officer be 
considered as the principle cause of this assassina- 
tion — naj, even regarded as the murderer of thoi 
unhappy Prince.^'* 

To this, five Russian Bishops appended tlieir 
signatures. 

Ylasfief was made a General, and his Lieutenant 
a Colonel, in the following year with a pension of 
ten thousand roubles each. 



THE GREAT LONDON SUCCESS! 

/ 

VICE VERSA; 

Or, A Lesson to Fathers. 

By F. ANSTEY. 

PRICES : 

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1 vol., 12mo., cloth, g-ilt, - .50 


tCXXRACXS K»OI»I ISOXICES BY XHE EJ^GEISH PBlESS. 


VANITY FAIR. 


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i)\. the volume. It should be added that Mr. Anstey writes well, and in a style admirably 
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“ The story is told with so much wit and gayety that we can not be deceived in our 
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among the most popular authors of the day.” 

NOTES AND QUERIES. 

“ This is a thoroughly laughable book, and in days when most authors, like the poet of 
Dr. Oliver V'^endell Holmes’s verses, seem to shrink from ‘ writing as funny as they can,’ it 
richly deserves the exceptional welcome due to an exceptional effort.” 

WORLD. 

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tnind.s before now. It is illustrated in this book with surprising freshness, originality, and 
force. . . . The book is more than wildly comic and amusing; it is, in parts, exceedingly 
pathetic.” 

TURD A Y REVIEW. 


“If there ever was a book made up from beginning to end of laughter, yet not a comic 
Uook, or a ‘ merry ’ book, or a ])Ook of .jokes, or a book of pictures, or a jest book, or a tom- 
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farher.s, in the first instance, and their sons, nephews, uncles, anil male cousins next.” 


JOHN W. l.o^'FJiL (*()., I’ubli.sliers, 14 I'y KJ Vrscy Strict, New York. 


LoygU’s Editions of tho Foots. 


RED LINE EDITIONS. 



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LOVELL'S LIBRARY. 


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ithout a sufficiency of Jffios-phites.”— P bof. Pekcy. 

/ can cordially recommend to this class of' people — writers,- teaclierSy 
reachers, thinkers — I)r, F, Crosbtfs Vitalized Fhos-phite^ 
’came 1 hare tned them myself . ' Before 1 could conscientiously say any- 
king about them I said to Dr. Crosby: ^ 1 am suffering from overwork of the 
nerves; if the compound is fitted for anyone's case, itdsfor mine.' 

“ 1 have taken it, and feel that it has done me a decided benefit. 1 know' 

I suffer from over-emphoyment of the brain on my three papers; Iknaw I 
waste away my nerve mederial. This compound is fitted to resupply this 
waste — that is the reason it is useful. V* n 

“ It is especially useful in indigestion. Debility, Sleeplessness, etc. I myC 
t ’df already feet the beneficial effects 1 have derived. ‘ 

' • . “.1. 3/. KELLOGG, 

** Editor of N. T. School Journal, Sclulafs Companion, etc., etc., 21 
"Park Place!* * 

F. CROSBY, CO., 

664 & 666 SIXTH AVENUE, N. V. 

For Hale by DruffjflstH; or by mall lit F. O. order, ‘bill, o*- 

pOHtajjre Htamp.s, $1,. < 



GRAND, SQUARE AND DPRIGH 

PIANOS. 



. Superior to all others in Tone, Durability ^n<i Worknnanshi 
have ihe endorsement ol the leading s Artiste. P’li'st Medal 
Merit and Diplomo cl Hq^or at Centennial Exhibition. 

Musical authoritios and critics prefer the. SOHMER PIANC 
and they are purchased by those- possessing refined musical tag 
land ap’preciaiing the richest qu-^ity oi tone and highest perl'ecyt 
gene.’aliy in a Piano. s, 

SOHMER & CO., 

MANUFACTURERS OF 

fend, Square and Upriglit Pianos, 

149 to 155 EAST 14th ST., NEW YORK. , , 

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